Breaking news flashes –
“Today completes one hundred days of the war.”
We are used to it now. We do not mourn war.
The anchors selling breaking news of the war
through shrill voices, bursting their innards out,
have moved on to other products.
Our world is a warehouse of products (deaths).
Plenty of deaths. No dearth of selling products.
The workers who are making firecrackers today
on a shoddy factory floor
can be tomorrow’s breaking news.
The minister who announces the compensation
doesn’t want to know the price of a life.
He knows the price of a vote.
In great noble America, the parents give cartridges
and loaded guns to sons and then ask them to
play hide and seek with the gun toys.
The sons play real. The small coffins occupy
a few days prime time news till a new product (death)
takes over the market.
Today completes one hundred days of the war.
Which war?
It is blasphemous to ask.
Every war looks the same:
Death – Destruction – News – Profit.
Moumita Alam is a poet from West Bengal. Her poetry collection The Musings of the Dark is available on Amazon.
Featured image: Reuters