Now, let’s have a minute’s silence
for the three thousand Afghans who perished
under a hailstorm of freedom bombs
when we hunted Bin Laded and failed.
And a minute silence
for those in Rwanda and Burundi
who were hacked to death in a jungle clearing
while we watched, hand in pockets.
Not to forget those in Chile, Argentine and Honduras
taken out at night and shot
because they didn’t believe in the great capitalist society.
Victims they are of state sponsored terror.
So many dead
that minutes will stretch into hours of silence
and that won’t do upsetting the wheels of industry.
Abstract numbers erased by our collective memory,
because they didn’t die
under the full glare of daytime T.V,
but we must never make the error of thinking
that those lives lost
are of lesser value than ours.