Raw Footage

Raw Footage
	--after Leonard Cohen
by Mike Maggio

I was sitting watching the news
and there were bombings and killings and all the usual kinds of violence
being perpetrated against innocent people in all parts of the world
and they were talking about this 16 year old Palestinian boy
who had strapped explosives around his waist
so that he could blow up some Israeli guards at the border crossing
and I was wondering what could make someone so young so desperate
and then they told us how the kids had all made fun of him because he was short
how he was promised 23 dollars and 7 virgins if he blew himself up
and then they brought his mother and she was crying and complaining
about the people who take advantage of children
the most vulnerable of the vulnerable in this sick sad world
and I asked myself how a people could become so hopeless
that they had so little left in this life, that they had given up everything
that the last and only thing they had to offer was the only way
they could imagine that there was even a glimmer of hope that they would get out of 
this situation that had kept them prisoners for so many years

I was reading a book about the holocaust
and there was pain and suffering and pathos beyond the capacity of human endurance
and I remembered a time when I was a child of 6 or 7 years old
I was at a friend’s house and there was a movie playing on the TV 
and I watched as a roomful of women holding babies and young children were herded naked into showers
and when the spigots were turned on there was gas instead of water
and I watched in horror as the women held on tight to their children
in their one last gasp of motherly love
and the pain was so great that I closed my eyes and wished that I hadn’t been there in that room at that time but the image by then was so seared into my memory
that even today as I write these words, as I wonder how much misery
could be caused in name of politics and power
the pain is still so great that I consider ending my life
just to stop it, just to ease it just a little bit
because so many people have suffered, so many people are still suffering at the hands of the greedy
for reasons that even the wildest animals could not comprehend 

I was walking down Constitution Avenue
in this capitol of the free world
where the archives of democracy are housed in a museum not far from here
where the president of this great country resides in this not-so-great era of our history
and I came upon a man huddled by a fire wrapped in an oily, grimy cloth
and I looked beyond the feigned smile and the request for spare change
I looked into his vacant eyes and his hollow face and I saw raw fear
draped over his frail frame like a pall
the face of a man who was enduring the last indignity
in a long line of indignities his people had faced when they were wrested from their villages 
when they were shackled and sold and beaten and stripped of every ounce of humanity
and I looked in his eyes and I saw myself
and I thought this could be me lying in the street hungry and cold
this could be my son, my daughter, my wife, my mother, my friend
it could be you my friend
it could be anyone of you, lying out there helpless and destitute
wondering what angry god could have allowed any and all of this to happen

I was sitting at my desk writing a poem
or a story or some other piece of nonsense 
that some venerable publication might see fit to print between its pristine covers
and I was thinking that maybe I could make a difference
that maybe we could make a difference
that maybe we could do something about the pain
other than write poems or sing songs or paint pictures
or talk about it over cocktails or huffed over a hot mug of Starbucks
or hiding behind our newspapers in our cozy cafes
while the homeless and the destitute parade outside
like ghosts, invisible in their veils of pain
because it could be you my friend, yes you
or the person sitting beside you or the person sitting across the room
take a look now, stand up, walk around, try to feel your neighbor’s pain
because we are all in this together my friends
because my friends as we share this moment now
we are all getting closer to that time when we will eventually be in pain
whether we become destitute or homeless or maybe lose a spouse or a loved one or maybe you’ll wake up one morning and find yourself alone looking in the mirror
asking yourself what have I done with my life, wondering where all the friends are
as you pick up the razor blade and wonder whether you should use as directed
or to make one simple cut across the flat of your wrist instead

And I want you to promise me my friends, that when you leave here tonight
while you’re going home by yourself or with your loved one or with your friend
and you come upon someone who is in pain
maybe one of the homeless that live just behind this building
or the woman who has been abused by her husband
or the teenager who’s selling his body on the street corner
because he ran away from home and doesn’t know any other way to survive
or the man who is recklessly shooting his gun because he lost his job, or his wife or his best friend to some incomprehensible act of violence
or the street whore who hides her wretchedness behind a patina of heavy makeup
when you see any of these people I hope that you will go beyond your shrugged shoulder or your offer of spare change or your attempts to assuage your guilt
that you will do something bigger and braver to help ease the pain of your brothers and sisters

And if you promise me this tonight my friends, then maybe, just maybe, for just once
in these long, miserable, painful 52 years
I might get just one complete night of rest.

--from DeMockracy (Plain View Press, 2007)
Copyright 2007, 2023 by Mike Maggio