Sagepaper

My mind has darkened somewhat from reading about Rwanda again. It is not so bad this time, though. In looking back through some old poems, I came across a bit of prose in the middle of my journal. In it, I complained about the strain of researching the case studies for War and Public Health. I refer to 300,000 in mass graves. To be honest, I don't remember which case study had that particular feature.

I believe it might have been Serbian atrocities against Muslims. That is the last study to which I referred, anyway. I mentioned the Serbian torture and murder technique of packing the vagina with salt. I was either venting about Serbs, someone else, or the cumulative mass of inhumanity that permeated my research. I find I am confounded by the same problem: an inability to use verse to convey something that seems to call-out for poetic expression.

I understand, by the way, why the journalists who interviewed a girl from Columbine didn't pull their punches. It's for the same reason I didn't pull mine. The course instructor and I had several head-butting contests over content. The instructor found my distillations of each case study to be deeply disturbing, and shocking.

When faced with an accusation of over-sensationalizing, I would cut loose with what had already been edited out. I kept most of my content. I believe the salt-packing of vaginas was one atrocity I was forced to delete. Perhaps that is why I was disturbed and referred to it in my journal.

Anyway, I obviously had set out to write poetry. I found myself writing prose, instead. I started out trying to state a topic to focus my troubled mind. Then I went on to develop it some in prose. My words of yesteryear still offer me a challenge. I won't take it up, probably, but you might.

Here goes:

There is a moment I would like to capture in verse. Efforts to do so with Haiku have proven unsatisfactory. Short, traditional verse might work. Then again, I might need to write an epic to capture a single "click."

The moment I want to capture is contained within a mass execution. What is it like to have your tortured, bound body forced into a kneeling position at the edge of a trench, along with fellow unfortunates? What is it like, in the middle of a long line, to hear the POP of execution working its way toward you? Frightened out of your prayers, what is it like when the POP is only two prisoners away? That's the moment I want to write about.

I remember a Columbine survivor's interview on T.V. Afterwards, I thought they should have edited or deleted the segment. The teen girl had been in the library. A few feet from her, a student was shot in the crown of the head. The witness described smoke pouring up from the entrance wound. Evidently that is common for point-blank shots. People even use the slang term, "smoking someone," to mean shooting someone.

Ignorance is bliss. I simply assumed they referred to the gunsmoke from the barrel. It never occurred to me that it might include reference to scorched flesh. Using this information is part of capturing that moment. The stench.

I'm writing an awful lot about not writing. I need some support in this effort. I still say there is no tragedy in death, only in life. I don't care that 300,000 people are in mass graves. I care that they were tortured and terrorized unto Death.

That's why I chose a moment of profound LIVING tragedy. The shots before your own must be gut-wrenching. Yours is hopefully just a "click," with no knowledge of the POP.

Blindfolded or not would be key to understanding the experience. Whether you are at a fresh grave site, or are kneeling at the edge of a ditch already three corpses deep would matter. There are more things than I can think of to consider. So much just to understand one "click."