1. The gun had a need now
to be fired. It had a will to be taken in hand
It had a power among many

to lead them together. It had binding force
It was the rule maker, the rule breaker
Son of the stone in hand that raises man above man

A sun-king shadowing all
Taxing the air, demanding of the earth
a relentless harvest. O, the long flowing rivers

bled dry. Ah, the un-gathered bones
Hung! Spent are the lives?
Hung! Spent are the seeds?

?everlasting

2. And so the historians
like accountants,
and the accountants

like historians
keeping all in place,
in neat little rows,

tidying up for their un
approachable
masters, who table

round, licking
fingers, snapping
ribs, tossing

coins? (from tongue
to tongue ?a universal Babel,
Hate, the gold standard)

weigh their course:
?a prior obligation ?a future obliteration
No telling other than theirs

No accounting but this

3. And so
to forestall the future,

by way of the dead,
we are told

(# of deaths) X (possibility for change)
(nature of man)
=s
(what happens now)

Flogging the innate
goodness of man, those intent

on applying this formula,
have inferred: Only the Rulers rule

The constant in their equation
is impunity. The constant in their equation

is impunity.

4. Read it this way (THREE VOICES)
In three columns down the page

1. ..was killed

2. kill..

3. fill in the name

alternating 1/ 3
2/ 3 like that till the names

are exhausted
Adding to them each day

Each hour, each
minute, if need be

Set it to the street-
borne contrapuntal beat of Victory!

and Death!,
droning the names of the fallen

?was killed/ kill?
?was killed/ kill?

was killed Beena
Kill Beena

was killed Hari
Kill Hari

Barely keeping up,
barely catching our breath,

(making sense of it all
...was killed/ Kill? )

with no end
In sight

Wayne Amtzis is a poet, photographer,
and long-time resident of Nepal.