Only bodies left aside,
with no name,
no shroud, no grave.
Handled, not held.
As the count rises,
individuality collapses.
Loss of life becomes numb inevitability,
repetitive, fading to invisibility.
It is no longer a shock,
but a pattern – of bodies that are only matter.
Behind the cloak of war,
bodies cease to be bodies.
They become mass –
counted, abstracted, managed.
Untouched, they hang in place,
stripped of identity and name.
A chain of repetition wraps around them,
a hook of endless violence,
where the body is reduced to a weight suspended in silence.
When the dead are dehumanised,
it reflects the dehumanisation
already inflicted in life.
NO NAME
Photos from the archives of the Gallery of Art in Legnica (Poland) Model: Julia Ciołkowska
