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Bosnia Tune To Burma Tune?




	     B O S N I A   T U N E

	As you yourself a scotch,
	crush a roach, or check your watch,
	as your hand adjust your tie,
	people die.

	In the towns with funny names,
	hit by bullets, caught in flame,
	by and large not knowing why,
	people die

	In small places you don't know
	of, yet big for having no
	chance to scream or say good-bye,
	people die.

	People die as you elect
	new apostles of neglect,
	self-restraint, etc -- whereby
	people die.

	Too far off to practice love
	for thy neighbor/brother Slav,
	where your cherubs dread to fly,
	people die

	While the statues disagree,
	Cain's version, history
	for its fuel tends to buy
	those who die

	As you watch athletes score,
	check your latest statement, or
	sing your child a lullaby,
	people die

	Time, whose sharp blood-thirsty quill
	parts the killed from those who kill,
	will pronounce the latter tribe
	as your type.

			By Joseph Brodsky

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Note:  Joseph Brodsky, the poet, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987.