I’ve been reading newspaper articles

about UN peacekeepers.

Nobody wants to talk about it.

Some government says plainly,

from what I can make out,

that it’s given up –

says that it’s “excessively negative”.

Soldiers practised kills and rapes in training.

They locked a boy

in a metal container

for a couple of sunny days,

and burnt another.

Another was fed saltwater,

insects and vomit.

There are photos

in a foreign news magazine

of a woman being raped

with a rocket flare,

and yes, a man with electrodes

on his genitals.

A soldier said

in an accompanying interview

that “things like this went on

in every command post.

We were exhilarated.”

(Notwithstanding the photos,

he said later

that the report was exaggerated.)

It’s said that these soldiers

were taking some kind of revenge,

that they were drunk, high, lawless.

This poem lacks subtlety.

I don’t know how to bring in

the journalism for instance –

the reportage,

which did and didn’t surround

these articles,

which did and didn’t fill these newspapers;

what was missed here,

together with the high fashion there.