Horror, Madrid, March 11 2004
3/11 9/11 6/11 12/11?
by Richard Vallance
humanitatis in memoriam
"When will we ever learn?"
3/11
"We were all on that train." We were. We are.
We all live in Iraq. We've paid for that.
Jerusalem: scores more killed, car by car.
In Afghanistan, countless dead, so far.
9/11
The Towers gave terrorists room to die.
We were Rwandans, millions massacred.
Who was on that plane blown clear from the sky?
We've all died of AIDS, Western aid deferred.
6/11
To Vietnam we came, we saw, we lost.*
Hiroshima, we knew not what hit us.
Into Nazi kilns millions more were tossed,
But Hitler shrugged off Jews, "What's all the fuss?"
12/11
Came the Great Depression, starvation loomed.
The Great War churned out trenches, pools of blood.
The Russian Revolution? Lenin boomed.
The Boer War? — Volk got murdered in their mud.
3/11
The Civil War was cause for deaths galore.
La Révolution française? Heads would roll.
The African slave trade cost so much more.
Lord Cromwell's Reforms took their faithful toll.
9/11
The Reformation got Europe battered.
God's Inquisitions condemned Christ to death.
When that Black Death hit, little lives mattered.
Crusaders fought their Moors to their last breath.
6/11
When Rome collapsed, Mongols raged with such lust.
Caligula killed citizens at will.
Rome's Legions ground Jerusalem to dust.
All of this is enough to make one ill.
12/11
Three eleven, nine eleven, killers plan well.
Six-twelve eleven, our slippery road to hell?
*Julius Caesar, the First Roman Emperor, once said, "Veni vidi vinci." I came, I saw, I conquered.
Autumn Leaves
volume 8 number 3
This poem is copyright © 2004, Richard Vallance, all rights reserved.
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