http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4n7rDbwuYM

Uploaded by SpokenVerse on Oct 26, 2011

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" - a quotation usually attributed to Edmund Burke who did say something very similar. Similar words are also used in the Russian film adaptation of "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy.

There are several versions of this poem.
About 30,000 people went missing in Bosnia during the 1992-95 war - this poem was written in 1992.
Brodsky was an American of the Russian-Jewish origin.
He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1987.

Pictures of the cellist of Sarajevo from this site
http://marylea.blogspot.com/2010/11/cellist-of-sarajevo-vedran-smailovic.html

For some idea of the effect of civil war in Bosnia, watch this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn44A0WvJ-s

As you pour yourself a scotch
Crush a roach or check your watch
As your hands adjust your tie
people die

In the towns with funny names
Hit by bullets, caught in flames
By and large not knowing why
people die

In small places you don't know
Yet big for having no
Chance to scream or say good-bye
people die

People die as you elect
New apostles of neglect,
Self restraint, etc. whereby
people die

Too far off to practice love
For thy neighbour, brother, Slav
Where your cherubs dread to fly
people die

While the statues disagree
Cain's version, history
For its fuel tends to buy
those who die

As you watch the athletes score
Check your latest statement or
Sing your child a lullaby
people die

Time, whose sharp, bloodthirsty quill
Parts the killed from those who kill
Will pronounce the latter tribe
As your tribe