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Imagine nothing,
nothing to read, no way to write
no way to see your thoughts laid out in gray on white

Imagine loneliness,
loneliness without solitude
no way to clear the mind or cleanse the soul

Imagine children,
children conceived in hate
mothers unable to provide or protect

Imagine,
just imagine
knowing only
war
abandonment
poverty
ignorance
powerlessness
hunger
pain
pain
only pain.

Imagine,
just imagine dying before you are old enough to know who you are

© Jamie Dedes

An early version of this poem was published online in Sam Hamill’s Poets Against the War. Some of the first poems from that effort were collected in an anthology. All the poems are now archived at a university but at this point I’m at a loss to remember which one. The poem was later published in Salamander Cove. I pulled Imagine out and dusted it off today in response to current events and the associated reckless rhetoric.

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Thugs from hell have taken freedom’s store
The rich get richer, the poor die quicker

& the only god that sanctions that

Is no god at all but rhetorical crap

excerpt from The Ballad of Girly Man in Girly Man by Charles Bernstein