We got to outer space but we never stopped the wars

In the beginning, there was one sure way
to get your picture in the paper.
but now, they don’t bother to send in
the cameras anymore to catch every tear
that skates down a devastated mother’s face
sliding from damp, disbelieving eyes,
blurring the sight of that nobleman
with his hat in his hands.
Everybody has been rendered anonymous and
Insignificant. A number. A statistic.

Now, more often than not, nobody even mentions
your name. That way, we can conveniently forget that
you had a mother and a father
or two mothers or two fathers
or an adoring younger sister
or a jokester of an older brother
your buddies from high school
a girlfriend or a boyfriend
a husband or a wife
possibly a cat or a dog
or a Siamese fighting fish.

This is what you've been reduced to:
Rising numbers in the newspaper, and
captions beneath the meaningless pictures
that people barely even glance at
on the deadening six o’clock news.

And I want to ask you how you feel knowing
that the world has become bored with
your tribulation, that the novelty of what is
endless for you has ended for them. I wonder
what they would think if they were there
in the epicenter of the maelstrom,
because chances are, that among AK-47s, M-16s,
hand grenades, landmines, tiger tanks, and
20+ suicides whose accounts are curiously intercepted
someplace between Kuwait and American television…
they’d be surprised at how relieving
a dull moment can become.