Satellite image of Sudan executions. Image courtesy of Yale School of Public Health -public domain
By Nick Moss
In ’44 and ’45, the piles of shoes at Majdanek,
The mounds of human hair at Auschwitz,
Bergen-Belsen’s heaps of corpses
Were, for their liberators, unforeseen, and monstrous.
Now, though, genocides are enacted in full view,
Overseen serenely by Planet Labs Sky Sats,
So that the piles of bodies at the Saudi Maternity Hospital
In El Fasher, the blood smeared thick along the ground, are
Inescapable for anyone who can bring themselves to watch.
No surprises, just a rhetoric of platitudes, and profit from the ruin.
On a video from a mobile phone, someone asks an RSF militiaman
For mercy. On camera (to camera, perhaps, all-too media aware) he says “I will never have mercy on you. Our job is only killing.” Yesterday’s news now.
And the satellite images don’t show/the flow of gold /to the UAE /and to Egypt/ bought from Burhan and from Hemedti (why pick a side when both dogs are in the race) / Or the fighter planes sold by China /with Qatari money/ or the drones Turkey flogs to both sides/ the drones that mean you dare not move/ cannot breathe/ in the heat /in case they pick up your twitching /and the rasp of your breath.
The genocides all in plain sight.
Children eating animal feed,
Men in Aviators and Wagner t-shirts,
Militec targeting systems in Omdurman.
One hand washing the other
Clean of any guilt for the rapes, the butchered kids,
The heaps of corpses, and the profits of atrocity,
Trousered out of view.
