What is Evil?
The answer is different
Depending on who you ask.
A Police Officer
Would think of the things
He has seen during
His work,
Teens splattered
Across the highway
Alongside the drunk
Too inebriated
To care.
The Man who was inebriated
Would have said
That cancer was evil
When it took
His 20 year old daughter
Before she could have
Her first drink
So he took them
For her,
Before they
Took him
On the highway.
Evil
A young teen would say
Was the sadistic kid
Who was torturing animals
Back behind the school,
And then found it ironic
That he died
On the highway.
Evil would laugh
Because the nicest girl
In school was driving the car
And she didn't deserve
Any of it…
Evil in Darfur
Are the men
Who kill people
By forcing their children
To shoot their parents
As a rite of initiation
Into the militia.
Evil is a society
That is so concerned
With cheap prices
And high profits
That the workers
Commit suicide
When they fail
In third world
Countries.
Evil is the thought
That enters into any mind
That thinks
After learning of this
That someone
Anyone
Should do something
About it,
And does nothing.
Evil is consuming
An entire planet's
Resources
And believing
That so long as you
Have money
To buy it
You deserve to have
As much as you want,
No matter what
Others lack.
Evil is whatever
Happens that should
Turn our stomachs
To look at it directly,
Murder,
Rape,
Holocaust,
Cancer,
Burning books,
Children with limbs missing
From mines,
And then
THEN
There are the hidden
Atrocities
The ones where
It takes time
To see the crime.
Evil to me
Is that it socially
Unacceptable
To die quick
And socially acceptable
To kill slowly
Oneself,
Others,
An entire region
Animal species
Plant species
A whole planet…
So long as it happens
Slowly.
The same is true
For the frog…
Dump him in boiling water
He will jump out.
Boil him to death slowly
He will stay before
He realizes
It's too late.
