FOR EVERY THOUSAND WORDS

For every picture a thousand, what?
Limbs, organs, lives?
We now see human devastation
with desensitised eyes.
Games, film, news media,
the social network wars,
gods and politics, then as now,
still the corporate whores.
Games have turned
our souls to clay
Conflict is a bore,
war is cliché
Vote for those. Pray with these.
Join virtual oblivion escapees.
There's a different value
on suffering now.
What once was sacred
is now cash cow.
For someone somewhere
there is something to be gained.
For one hundred and forty characters,
or to take another level
or to see a thousand words,
were you entertained?

Tamara Linn Hiatt, April 2014 - I've been wondering how Wilfred Owen would see war today in the context of corporate profiteering, violent video games and social media.