POEM - REASONS WHY WE KILLED YOU

REASONS WHY WE KILLED YOU

I included some poems at the back of my book, Not Heavy Enough To Win A Prize? and the poem that follows is one of them. At the time I felt it necessary to preface it with a few words. This is what I said:

Having written this it occurred to me that it had no beginning and no end that could be described as such by virtue of meaning. The poem ends because I had run out of Reasons but there are, I know, many more Reasons – the human race invents a few more every day. The poem begins where it does because, well, one has to start somewhere. The verses fall in no particular order, which is as it should be for no one reason is more important than any other and the only relationship they have with one another is their common contempt for the value of life. I suppose that one way of printing this poem is on cards, one Reason to a card, that are thrown into the air and allowed to fall as they will – or perhaps written on a long strip of paper, twisted half a turn and then joined at its ends, to make what is called a ‘Möbius Strip’, a paradoxical piece of origami that has no beginning and no end.

What is so significant to me now about this is that the this century brought about horrors that no-one had ever contemplated. My words above, ‘the human race invents a few more every day’, written a few years before the new century begins to seem entirely inadequate in terms of what was to happen to our world.

Some years ago the poem was performed in the Oundle Festival of Literature in St. Peter’s Church. I printed 18 copies, kept one for myself, and distributed them to 17 volunteers. I had highlighted a different Reason on each sheet as well as the final Reason – so each sheet carried two highlighted Reasons, one specific to the audience member and one which all 18 of us had. I did not include the verse with the anglo-saxon language in view of the setting. I retained the copy with the first verse and then distributed the rest among the audience. I briefly explained the idea and then delivered the first verse. The person holding the second verse then stood up and read it out loud. They then sat down. Then followed the third person. So it went until the penultimate verse. On its conclusion all the readers stood and delivered the final verse together.

I think I’d like to try that again some time.

REASONS WHY WE KILLED YOU

We killed you
Because you were the enemy
Because you looked like the enemy
Because you were not our friend.

We killed you
Because you were our friend
But you did not kill our enemy
So you ceased to be our friend.

We killed you
Because you were our friend
But you killed our enemy too well and became a threat
So we had to kill you.

We killed you
Because you were the wife of our enemy
And the child of our enemy
And the wife and child of our friend who became our enemy.

We killed you
Because everyone else was killing you
And we did not want to attract attention to ourselves
By not killing you.

We killed you
Because you had what we wanted
Or because we had what you wanted
It didn’t matter what it was.

We killed you
Because you were a symbol of something
It is easier to kill a symbol than a person
The killing was symbolic don’t you see?

We killed you
Because we believed in God
And you believed in God as well
So you didn’t really die when we killed you.

We killed you
Because after the torture
Which we enjoyed although you did not
Your anguished face embarrassed us.

We killed you
Because it was necessary
To show others that we had the moral strength
And courage necessary to kill you.

We killed you
As a simple rite of passage
From innocent childhood to responsible adulthood
And we wore part of you as a sign.

We killed you
Because we were very angry.
Not with you but you were there and you would do.
We were both quite calm afterwards.

We killed you
For fun. The lump of concrete was not dropped
Onto people. It grew smaller as it fell into the dots.
Like a video game without the sound.

We killed you
Because you were in the way.
You were in the fucking way you fucking fuck, you.
Why didn’t you fucking move, you fuck?

We killed you
Because you were so beautiful
That it made the beast within us rage with hunger
And we had to feed it on you.

We killed you
Because although your need was pressing
Our need was far, far greater
And we had to, had to, let you die.

We killed you
Because we had far more than we needed
And sold the surplus to you at a very fair price.
We regret that it was less than wholesome.

We killed you
Because there were so many other demands on us.
So many hands held out in supplication.
We did not have the time to save you.

We killed you
Because you were not wanted.
You were hardly bigger than an apple and it didn’t matter
We would have killed you later, anyway.