The mangled corpse: bludgeoned; skull gaping,
gore-spattered, blood-soaked. That intimacy with
slaughter, we call it savagery; their basic weaponry,
rock and branch; that engagement with violence.
And later, with the wielding of swords, the blood-bath
battles; that crush of thrashing bodies, flailing armies,
harvesting death; we call it barbarism, that intimacy
with carnage: the hacking, slitting, piercing of bodies.
To the release of rockets that kill, maim and demolish from
distance; no blood-stained tunics nor eyeballing death;
we call it civilisation: that delivery of devastation and death
with corporate efficiency, distribution worthy of the 21st century.
