Paul Tibbets

Born February 23rd, 1915.
Brigadier General in the U.S. Air Force.
Awarded the Distinguished Service Cross,
The Distinguished Flying Cross,
And the Legion of Merit.
They also gave you a Purple Heart
To compensate for the one you lacked.

On August 6th, 1945
You dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima
Weeks after Japan had already surrendered to the Allies.
You murdered 100,000 human beings,
Outliving them all by more than 60 years.
You played the Devil’s loyal bureaucrat,
Taking away their right to hug their mothers,
Embrace their spouses,
Learn to play guitar, or
Taste another ice cream cone.

You were once quoted as saying
That you never lost a single night of sleep
Over having been the one to drop the bomb,
Stating that you had a job to do and
You did yours quite well.
You reminded everyone that it was done
For the causes of Freedom and Democracy,
An insipid irony,
As I am positive that the residents of Hiroshima
Were never given the opportunity to democratically vote
On whether or not their lives would be obliterated
In a single calamitous flash of light.

Paul Tibbets,
The most accomplished serial killer that ever lived,
A terrorist by the most rigid definition of the word,
Devoutly proud to be American.
With one flight across the Japanese sky
You forever perverted our faith in reason,
Our notion of consequence,
Our sense of compassion.

The Buddhists believe that one karmic infraction
Holds quantum repercussions for a soul.
If you cut the throat of one cow in a slaughterhouse
You will be reincarnated 1,000 times as a
Cow in a meat factory murdered ambivalently,
Your blood spilled again and again
Until the debt is paid,
The lesson learned.

It is not enough to hope that you will be reborn
10,000,000 times as a shirtless village boy
Disintegrated by a nuclear missile
Dropped on your town square as
You are innocently skipping to the playground.
I am not convinced the lesson would be learned.

You who outlived them all;
The man who eliminated an entire city of families
And claims he never lost a night of sleep over it,
Proving the superiority of U.S. military power
And the inferiority of its moral code,
Proving also that there is nothing more frightening
Than a man who is capable of “just following orders.”

The associated press claims that on
November 1st, 2007 you finally left this life,
But I will maintain the idea that you never lived at all.