Watcher of Charles G. Taylor Trial, From Sierra Leone
Watcher of Charles G. Taylor Trial, From Sierra Leone
He raises with hook a bunched white handkerchief;
it is not a flag of surrender.
Still presses it to lips to catch at least
pieces of sobs that linger, that sunder
him in two–before and after, then
and now–when already he’s been trimmed
down to his core, both of his arms sliced off when
the slicing was good, so that now he’s rimmed
with sling, limbed with plastic counterparts.
He misses hands, mourns more those who are gone–
he wants to see their shine of faces, hearts–
not smeared with blood and not with bodies shorn.
He wants to take them in lost arms, to enfold,
he wants them back, and then to hold, to hold.
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The coverage of the trial of Charles G. Taylor, brutal dictator of Liberia, is horrific and moving.
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ManicDDaily 
April 28, 2012 at 3:45 am
This is enough to keep a person up at night, thinking about how cruelty and power so often are inextricably linked…the more power, the more terrifyingly inhuman the cruelty. Thanks for posting this–I’d heard nothing about this trial.
April 28, 2012 at 5:02 am
It is horrific and heart-rending, and you have caught the horror and conveyed it, and without false sentiment. No mean achievement.
April 28, 2012 at 1:42 pm
goodness…i know nothing of this as well….the thought of the man with no arms wanting to hold all those that are gone is completely moving….ugh…stomach turning as well…
April 28, 2012 at 2:27 pm
Taylor is currently being tried as a war criminal. The numbers of people mutilated, raped and killed numbers in the tens of thousands. k.