Madrid Tribute



Explosions ripped apart 4 trains today
The work of human beings, an abomination
Bodies lacerated, scattered through the station
Families lacerated forever, meaningless agony
There is something senseless about this day
A gut feeling of futility, I sense a void
This isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last
This cataclysm could visit any neighborhood sur terre
Terrorism has also been globalized

Going through the motions today, but underneath is nihility
I can practically overhear people who are talking to me
Arms limbs and brain matter flashing
But nobody pays tribute, even acknowledges the scourge of society
The Chronicle doesn’t even carry the story
Broken bodies and body parts were thrown along the platforms
As rescue workers struggled to separate the dead from the wounded.
Why the hell am I rotting away in school, learning everything about nothing
When so many are dying, magnitudes consumed by the fireball of rancor
Atocha is the terminal station for the journeys of uncountable inanimate
Their resting place and their fulfillment, eternal omega
Perennial Ground Zero, soon to bedizen every nation’s capital
Fortunate it wasn’t you or me, because this hatred is blind
Bloody victims crawled from mangled train cars and staggered into the streets.
Other victims were found burned to death in their seats.
I’ve become indifferent to my own life
What if those twisted limbs were my lifeless machinery
I saw bodies flying
There was a security guard dripping with blood.
I’ve lost track of the crimson cycle
Thousands of people have died in Europe over the decades in violent attacks by groups
like ETA in Spain and the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland.
Or maybe I just don’t want to accept or understand
Libyan terrorist operations killed 270 people in the bombing of an American airliner
171 people in a French airliner brought down over Africa in 1989.
Cycles are circles, this is becoming routine, we are becoming inured
Vive l’âme éternal, Combattez le futur immemorial.

11 March 2004