Five Ways To Kill A Man

[janhenz]

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i'm not sure if this has been posted before,

I came across this poem by Edwin Brock years ago,
i wonder why it wasn't as powerful to me before as it is while i'm reading it now.
A simple and direct poem -no rhymes and all, but very powerful and chillingly effective.


Five Ways to Kill a Man

There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.
You can make him carry a plank of wood
To the top of a hill and nail him to it.
To do this
Properly you require a crowd of people
Wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak
To dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one
Man to hammer the nails home.

Or you can take a length of steel,
Shaped and chased in a traditional way,
And attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears.
But for this you need white horses,
English trees, men with bows and arrows,

At least two flags, a prince and a
Castle to hold your banquet in.

Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind
Allows, blow gas at him. But then you need
A mile of mud sliced through with ditches,
Not to mention black boots, bomb craters,
More mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songs
And some round hats made of steel.

In an age of aeroplanes, you may fly
Miles above your victim and dispose of him by
Pressing one small switch. All you then
Require is an ocean to separate you, two

Systems of government, a nation's scientists,
Several factories, a psychopath and
Land that no one needs for several years.

These are, as I began, cumbersome ways
To kill a man. Simpler, direct, and much more neat
Is to see that he lives somewhere in the middle
Of the twentieth century, and leave him there.

-- Edwin Brock

[gareb]

the irony of times.

it's quite revealing to see that the crudeness and barbarity of murder shows despite how the times and climes dictate the differences.

dedicated to the hawks at the White House, as well as inside our very own Malacanang.

[abuot]

hmmm...
1.) the Roman Empire
2.) the English Medeival Wars
3.) WW1
4.) WW2
5.) ??..present??
..wa ko ka gets sa 5th