Odin Roark Poet Free verse

Notes About The Poem

Author Notes

Today’s NYT editorials re: “Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses” as well as the outstanding video available on the NYT front page re: the essence of our justice system, “The Case Against Torture” make additionally clear what a grave mistake this country made. (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/opinion/prosecute-torturers-and-their-bosses.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region)  And (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/20/opinion/the-case-against-torture.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region

Torture's Toxic Contagion

Torture’s Toxic Contagion
                  by Odin Roark

From where comes these perpetrators,
These conscienceless mortals
Whose senses are quashed by orders,
By fear of demotion,
By allegiance to evil?

Who demands the allegiance
To insulated Washington duplicity
Puppets adorned in suits and ties of importance
Astride fine leather chairs of authority?

What right does evil have over good?

Does assumed expediency have to trump integrity,
Stealthily burying principals beneath the quagmire of incompetence,
Adopting rules from coerced legal offices,
Where procedural override of accepted war conduct,
Creates U.S. atrocities into persecution’s bubbling vat waiting?

How acidic this brew of orifice aggression must be.
How explosive the brain’s chemistry must become.
How malodorous the waft of this barbaric wretchedness must seem.

Still…

How easy it is to ignore that such bad behavior
Is counter-international law,
Subject to accountability
To legal prosecution and punishment.

Are we so glib with our conscience
That we think “out of sight, out of mind” is an escape?

For…

Lest one forgets the pent up pay-back
Festering in the shadows of the victims’ “to do” lists,
One’s Machiavellian innocence may not even see it coming…

What ever their choice might be.

Torture’s toxic caldron continues to be stirred,
Too few daring to taste the fiery recipe before being served
What might be truly the last supper.

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