POETIC JUSTICE: September 2006

LIVING GROUND

Our children are calling to us,
calling from the living ground.
The sleep of graves may their rumbling,
but the most thunderous tossing
Arrives in this; our world's living.

Let us not hold here our shame;
Shame that dwells behind our gaze,
But give consent to shape indignity,
Fashion it so as to usher in serenity
And free us of the woeful echoes of war.

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

Remind Us Why?

BOILING NIGHT

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Above the casement he sits, the moon,
Sweltering in the boiling night.
Wafting, his breath slogs through the houses,
A music so sad, so awkward,
That even the wolves shrink back in silence.

A little girl stands naked in the street
As a dog slowly lifts its rabid eyes
And two cats screech and hiss in the alley,
Three men stumble to the broken curb
And the moon shrieks overhead.

The people come out on the street and begin talking.
“Why’s the moon so low with screeching music?”
“Why’s the moon making a noise at all?”
“The world’s terror causes him pain.”
“It’s a sign of global warming.”

The people, now listless, return to their homes
And the three men stumble away,
The cats run screaming down a barren street,
And the dog stares upon the naked girl
Who motions for it to come.

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

WE IN AMERICA HOPE

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Yes.
We in America are
(a symbol of hope)
Hope so far removed
(vacant)
Stolen from the same kind of acts
(horrors)
Terror perpetrated upon people of color
(skin)
Color in other countries.
(Iraq)
Yes.
(Darfur)
We'd never torture
(kill)
Torture if it were not for the good
(purity)
God of the nation and the world.
(humanity)
Yes.
(white-mankind)
Americans would not kill for color
(race)
Color or creed.
(Islam)

Religion.
(Christianity)
Thank the Lord we live in America.
(The United States)
Yes.
(Democracy)
Our history
(of equality)
Our history hasn't anything the nature
(good)
Of genocide
(murder)
Genocide or racism
(nigger)
Genocide or racism or
(segregation)
Genocide or racism or bigotry
(raghead)
Genocide or racism or bigotry or oppression.
(chains)
Yes.
(shackles)

We are free
(liberated)
Free and brave
(fearless)
Free and brave and bright
(dazzling)
Free and brave and bright and humble
(modest)
Free and brave and bright and humble and equal.
(under the God's eyes)

Yes.
(Christianity)
God bless America!
(freedom)
Yes.
(bravery)
God bless her!
(colorless features)
Yes.
(blonde hair)
God bless!
(blue eyed Jesus!)
Yes.
(Allah)
Godless!
(God)
Yes.

Let us have a moment of silence to commemorate the

dead and dying and about to die.

****

***

Thank you. Now we may begin anew.

We are the-
Hope in the wind
The sound of boots
Upon the ear
Singing and marching

The whistle of bombs
Finest war machine in the history
Of the globe
Whistling triumphant

We are the-
Hope in the wind
The sound of boots
Upon the ear
Singing and marching

Rally cry of machine guns
Fiercest fighting machinery
In the world
Chanting triumphant

We are the-
Hope in the wind
The sound of boots
Upon the ear
Singing and marching

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

~~Republican~~ American traditional values
(Thank you C&L and Jesus General)

O! LEADER, SPRING FORTH!

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(Ben Heine - Cartoons)

O! Leader! Spring no leased justification of force. The world
Leans not for anguish of your triumphant resolve that is
As glowing as a three-legged dog forging pleasure.
Devotion is not some barren instance, but the disquiet
Of millions shammed by your sullied honor and head-patting.
The shackle and whip have their like foundation and
The wits in your pan and despotic fist paint grim.

Held out, they will grasp for paradise, yet hold and accept hell.
What use have you been? What tactic, save for terror seen
Now three-thousand souls too late? Devise no more lies and liars.
Provide only firm justice to the ears and eyes of those
Who have witnessed your increase by deceit and foolishness.

Be charitable now, offer it to these; our generations now fallen
And captured by your treachery. Wait no more! Kill no more!
No longer attempt to construct war; death before hope,
Instead, bring the delight of stars wonderment `cross the sky!
Transport hope, distribute peace; in them you’ll deliver truth.

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

Poll: Iraqis Back Attacks on US Troops
Document: Pakistan Agency Backs al-Qaida
Afghan attacks up despite truce
Tony Snow On NIE Report
Iraq War Has Acted as a "recruiting agent"

THE GOLDEN RAIL OF DREAM

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Ben Heine - Cartoons

A pixie gently alights upon the golden rail of dream
To plead for the world’s peace,
For leaders, kings and queens,
Presidents and ministers to hear.
“Heed well these words.
Peace, in this world, is yours if you want it.
Do not forsake your golden sway
Or forego the bright gift of their trust.”

Did the king answer?
The queen nod?
The president reply?
The minister bow?
What actions did speak for them?

With the plea now awash inside
The pixie flys away,
A shine of hope upon its wings.
The words echo for many days,
“...Peace, in this world, is yours if you want it.
Do not forsake your golden sway
Or forego the bright gift of their trust.”

When the words seek leaders eager to hear a prayer,
Does the king answer,
The queen nod,
The president reply,
The minister bow,
What actions speak for them?

Bush denies Iraq terror worsening, Communists targeted,
Taliban bomb attacks, Gaza a prison, Cluster bombs,
US extends deployment, 'Deaths' in protests, N. Korea Nixes Talks,
'They were celebrating beating us, behaving like criminals'

When tomorrow comes
Will the king answer,
The queen nod,
The president reply,
The minister bow,
What actions will speak for them?

(Ben Heine - Cartoons)

JESUS (PULP) CAMP

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"Evangelism's views on science and politics are so polarizing that almost any viewer, whether Orthodox, agnostic, or atheist, is bound to have an elemental reaction from the first shot of six-year-olds weeping in religious ecstasy."

"Cut to the flickering images of children writhing in a spiritual trance on a chapel floor while being hectored about the glory of dying for Christ, and one knows exactly where the first Christian suicide bombers will come from."

"A frightening, infuriating, yet profoundly compassionate documentary about the indoctrination of children by the Evangelical right."

"JESUS CAMP should be seen as it demonstrates the extremes to which the Religious Right will go to push its agenda."

"A piercing portrait of innocence perverted."

"This isn't the blind leading the blind, but it is the visually impaired leading the blind. Disturbing."

"You don't have to be an extremist liberal to find any minute of Jesus Camp more frightening than the entirety of Village of the Damned." (Full Reviews)

"There's a passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you." I been sayin' that shit for years. And if you ever heard it, it meant your ass. I never really questioned what it meant. I thought it was just a cold-blooded thing to say to a motherfucker before you popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this mornin' made me think twice. Now I'm thinkin': it could mean you're the evil man. And I'm the righteous man. And Mr. .45 here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could be you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. I'd like that. But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin, Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd." (Pulp Speech)

It is time to stand upon the path of the righteous man
To march Onward Christian Soldier to thy promised land
This ground is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish!
Come! Come, boys and girls, rave along with Pastor Becky!

Softly and Tenderly Washed in thy Blood
And the tyranny of evil men,
A fountain in the name of charity
And oil
And profit
And good will.
A spring of bloody sin
That needs shepherding still.

Washing away
Down in the valley of this;
Our darkness
Of How Great Thou Art.
Oh, Sweet Jesus!
Children, thy body is wrapped
In tainted flesh,
So march onward child
And let God have the rest.

O, Sweet sacrificial lambs,
Thou shall greet whitewashed terror
With thy own Godwrathful slant.
And thou shall relinquish
A Battle Hymn of the Republic
For mommy and daddy
And all your swell friends
Branded upon thy abused
And indoctrinated soul.

Pastor Becky
With thy Whole World in Her Hands
Has promised you things
You can’t understand,
And leads you into temptation
Of righteous death
And into an ache
For a candy-coated promised land
Lined with toy soldiers
And pink-plastic swords
And soft blankets
To lay thy bludgeoned head.

March along little soldier,
Jesus is calling thy name.
He’s made a list.
Praise God, he’s checked it twice,
Gonna find out if you'll live or die!

Pastor Becky, the true flock’s keeper
And god awful recruiter
Of bomb strapped children,
She will strike down upon thee
With great vengeance
And furious anger
If thou attempt to poison
And destroy her brothers and sisters.

And, children,
thou shall know the Lord
When he lays his vengeance upon her.
Come, nonbelievers,
Just a Closer Walk with Becky
And her Sweet Jesus!

Come children!
Bow to the spirit!
Kumbaya, God Bless America,
And that “my God is greater” shit!

The Blood of Jesus
Is waiting to be spilled
We Shall Overcome the day
When the Saints Go Marching In
Abide with Me and Come Thou Almighty King!
Thy bombs are louder than they!

Praise Him, Praise Him!
Sacrifice and die!
What A Friend We Have in Jesus today!
Children, Lord our Blessed Redeemer,
The Very Thought of them
Makes me want to cry!

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

Jesus Camp The Movie trailer

Rotten Tomato Reviews

BLACK SWAN

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Great glimmering black chariots
beyond our recent grasp
no more rumble across our sky.
We’ve sent them to rumble over there
above the wrong sands,
the wrong sky.

The gleam of the swan
holds the world;
all sounds, all occasions,
all shades, all weepings
are the black swans.

Down in our street
the roar still hovers near.
It howls when we are told
of another looming flight;
their wings, like a growth,
move inside us,
cancerous, unbearable.

These random birds are dead!
They can no longer die!
No longer suffer in our days of dismay,
years of dread...

If it is surprise we seek let it be a revolution,
not hunkering down for the next black swan!
Not skyward gaze! Stand up!
Look forward! March on!

Ben Heine - Cartoons

Dr. Omed's Tent Revival Show

Edge - The Third Culture

NO POETRY

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The white hot lie beckons of rationale
Yet veils its heat so children might yowl
In everlasting conflict with reality.
Boom!
Counterfeit words tumble through teeth
Eye to eye in emblazoned speech
To a sycophant prophetic acclaim.
Boom!
Thundering plainly, blindly to genuflect
At the blood-spattered feet of death
And propel air-sucked sin upon them.
Boom!
No poetry in the lopped limbs of despair
And no verse reckons their woeful prayer
But words oft shout down their plight.
Boom!
No prose in the whistling bomb’s release,
No hope in a child’s explosion of grief
Save for strapping `round vengeance.
Boom!
Turn, heavy and blistering irons! Retreat!
Be done with your contemptuous deceit!
There is no poetry in it,
None...

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

MY LOVE

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Michelle,
There is a grace
As smooth as supple hands,
As easy as dreams
Lifting away
To you.

Beautiful you are;
Your lips, your eyes, your soul.

There is a song
As gorgeous as the heavens,
As stirring as hope
In the eyes
Of you.

Beautiful you are;
Your lips, your eyes, your soul.

O, my best friend,
Where my mind travels
I find you waiting there,Waiting for me
In you.

Happy First Anniversary

Love always,
Mark

A DROP OF WATER

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Iraq torture 'worse after Saddam'
"Many bodies have missing skin, broken bones, back, hands and legs, missing eyes, missing teeth and wounds caused by power drills or nails, the UN report says.
Victims come from prisons run by US-led multinational forces as well as by the ministries of interior and defense and private militias, the report said."

Go ahead and scream Goddamnit!
Call out to your sweet Goddamned worship!
Howl from your hell of Goddamned throbbing!
Overlook the phantoms Goddamnit!
Castigate the living Goddamnit!
There’s honor in that! (At least it’s something…)

Strip the brown, pallid skin down to bone.
Strip the bared bone down to marrow.
Snap the back and crack the hand!

Are you doing what you can to save America?
Are you insuring that our planes stay aloft?
That their roar comes not crashing souls?
Who have you tortured today?
If no one, you're a traitor to America!
You do not respect her will!

Strip the brown, pallid skin down to bone.
Strip the bared bone down to marrow.
Snap the back and crack the hand!

Destroy life without murdering the physical being;
the definitive atonement of the insane.
Rid the world of joy,
adorn it in tongueless mourning
and the spirit of the black horse
is yours to saddle.

The sinister hand of torture is at the door.
Can you not hear it tapping?
It wants to enter and lash your children,
bend your fingers back to wrist,
shackle you, and cackle
with each drop of water
that
sinks
into
your
brow.

Strip the brown, pallid skin down to bone
and you’ve won.
Strip the bared bone down to marrow
and you’ve conquered.
Snap the back and crack the hand
and you’re king!

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

Iraq Torture `Worse After Saddam'
U.N. Human Rights Worsening in Iraq
Iraqis Using Kidnapped as Bombers
10 `Terrorists' Executed in Iraq

CRIMINAL-WAR-CRIMINAL

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(Ben heine - Cartoons)

It's very simple.
If the Prophet -p- has been reported to have said that we (Muslims) and they (the Jewish people) are so alike that we are like two shoes of a pair, then what does that tell you?(More…)

“I used to think the wounded would someday rule,
but, sadly, methinks they’ve been ruling all along." -tpm

A bloodstained dagger stands before a mirror,
A long mirror with deep, shimmering glass,
And the dagger, looking at its reflection,
Sees nothing less than flawless magnificence.

O! Mirror!
Mirror that stands before the world,
What would your eyes have us see?

“It’s blade, the righteousness of divine instrument,
It’s handle, the humble embrace of the ordinary,
And the blood, the fated sacrament to Him.
A guiltless and benevolent perfection; God.”

O! God!
God that oversees this swirling gale,
What would your eyes have us see?

“Avarice desire of power stems from hubris
And mirrors are useless to self-importance,
Save for thy reflection of a distorted character.”

O! Character!
True character that guides our hearts
What would your eyes have us see?

“The sadness that, even to the dagger, is invisible.
The innocent gutted by its blade is not manifest,
And the insignificance of its ignoble quest.”

O! Olmert!
Olmert, lounging with empire,
What would you have us believe?

“The blade is God’s will, His divine will and testament,
The handle assures God’s blade its steady slash,
And the blood is a corollary of God’s divine air."

O! God!
Again, what is it you would have us see?

"The mirror and the dagger… two shoes of a pair."

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

The Bush-Olmert Axis - Tom Paine.com

Olmert, Like Bush, Finds his Popularity Slipping - U.K. News

More Pressure on Olmert to Quit - Guardian Unlimited

Olmert's Jewish Mirror

(Ben heine - Cartoons)

PEACEMAKER OR RAVENOUS WARRIOR

When the homes rupture into flame
And the warrior meets the peacemaker
Will it not be a humble reckoning?
Will not the nobility of man shine down upon them?
Will this light not rumble at the door of freedom,
The will for excellence and splendor come forth,
Be a splendid ballet upon the stage of governance
Pirouetting over all the ornately cold and corrupt?

Be gentle that our swollen eyes might shut
Or be done with it!
Bring our souls `round to enchanting music
Or be done with it!
Spring a fountain of hope and a child’s joy
Or be done with it!
Offer wine instead of overflowing blood
Or be done with it!

Be a voice to the sky hovering in the heavens
Or be done with it!
Be a builder, a carpenter of love and elation
Or be done with it!
Be a consoling hand and offer it willingly
Or be done with it!
Be a martyr of peace with strength and will
Or be done with it!

Emerge as peacemakers, not ravenous warriors...
Exploding not in shrapnel, creating shards of gloom,
But bringing with you a hope unwrapped and bursting,
A magnificent gift teeming in truth and radiance
With stars bowing their silent expressions upon all
Lighting the paths that lead back to human charity
Where the cities of paradise lift their breathing souls...
Or be done with it…

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

Hat tip to C&L for

video and transcript.

*OLBERMANN TRANSCRIPT*

Finally tonight, a Special Comment about the Rose Garden news conference last Friday.

The President of the United States owes this country an apology. It will not be offered, of course. He does not realize its necessity.
There are now none around him who would tell him - or could. The last of them, it appears, was the very man whose letter provoked the President into the conduct, for which the apology is essential. An apology is this President’s only hope of regaining the slightest measure of confidence, of what has been, for nearly two years, a clear majority of his people.
Not "confidence" in his policies nor in his designs nor even in something as narrowly focused as which vision of torture shall prevail — his, or that of the man who has sent him into apoplexy, Colin Powell. In a larger sense, the President needs to regain our confidence, that he has some basic understanding of what this country represents — of what it must maintain if we are to defeat not only terrorists, but if we are also to defeat what is ever more increasingly apparent, as an attempt to re-define the way we live here, and what we mean, when we say the word "freedom."
Because it is evident now that, if not its architect, this President intends to be the contractor, for this narrowing of the definition of freedom. The President revealed this last Friday, as he fairly spat through his teeth, words of unrestrained fury… …directed at the man who was once the very symbol of his administration, who was once an ambassador from this administration to its critics, as he had once been an ambassador from the military to its critics. The former Secretary of State, Mr. Powell, had written, simply and candidly and without anger, that "the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism."
This President’s response included not merely what is apparently the Presidential equivalent of threatening to hold one’s breath, but — within — it contained one particularly chilling phrase. Mr. President, former Secretary of State Colin Powell says the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. If a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former secretary of state feels this way, don’t you think that Americans and the rest of the world are beginning to wonder whether you’re following a flawed strategy? BUSH: If there’s any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it’s flawed logic. It’s just — I simply can’t accept that. It’s unacceptable to think that there’s any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective.
Of course it’s acceptable to think that there’s "any kind of comparison." And in this particular debate, it is not only acceptable, it is obviously necessary. Some will think that our actions at Abu Ghraib, or in Guantanamo, or in secret prisons in Eastern Europe, are all too comparable to the actions of the extremists. Some will think that there is no similarity, or, if there is one, it is to the slightest and most unavoidable of degrees.
What all of us will agree on, is that we have the right — we have the duty — to think about the comparison. And, most importantly, that the other guy, whose opinion about this we cannot fathom, has exactly the same right as we do: to think — and say — what his mind and his heart and his conscience tell him, is right.

All of us agree about that.
Except, it seems, this President.

With increasing rage, he and his administration have begun to tell us, we are not permitted to disagree with them, that we cannot be right. That Colin Powell cannot be right.And then there was that one, most awful phrase.
In four simple words last Friday, the President brought into sharp focus what has been only vaguely clear these past five-and-a-half years - the way the terrain at night is perceptible only during an angry flash of lightning, and then, a second later, all again is dark.

"It’s unacceptable to think…" he said. It is never unacceptable… to think.

And when a President says thinking is unacceptable, even on one topic, even in the heat of the moment, even in the turning of a phrase extracted from its context… he takes us toward a new and fearful path — one heretofore the realm of science fiction authors and apocalyptic visionaries.
That flash of lightning freezes at the distant horizon, and we can just make out a world in which authority can actually suggest it has become unacceptable to think. hus the lightning flash reveals not merely a President we have already seen, the one who believes he has a monopoly on current truth.
It now shows us a President who has decided that of all our commanders-in-chief, ever… he, alone, has had the knowledge necessary to alter and re-shape our inalienable rights. This is a frightening, and a dangerous, delusion, Mr. President.
If Mr. Powell’s letter - cautionary, concerned, predominantly supportive — can induce from you such wrath and such intolerance — what would you say were this statement to be shouted to you by a reporter, or written to you by a colleague?
"Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government…"
Those incendiary thoughts came, of course, from a prior holder of your job, Mr. Bush. They were the words of Thomas Jefferson.
He put them in the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Bush, what would you say to something that annti-thetical to the status quo just now? Would you call it "unacceptable" for Jefferson to think such things, or to write them?
Between your confidence in your infallibility, sir, and your demonizing of dissent, and now these rages better suited to a thwarted three-year old, you have left the unnerving sense of a White House coming unglued - a chilling suspicion that perhaps we have not seen the peak of the anger; that we can no longer forecast what next will be said to, or about, anyone… who disagrees.
Or what will next be done to them. On this newscast last Friday night, Constitiutional law Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, suggested that at some point in the near future…some of the "detainees" transferred from secret CIA cells to Guantanamo, will finally get to tell the Red Cross that they have indeed been tortured.
Thus the debate over the Geneva Conventions, might not be about further interrogations of detainees, but about those already conducted, and the possible liability of the administration, for them. That, certainly, could explain Mr. Bush’s fury.
That, at this point, is speculative. But at least it provides an alternative possibility as to why the President’s words were at such variance from the entire history of this country. For, there needs to be some other explanation, Mr. Bush, than that you truly believe we should live in a United States of America in which a thought is unacceptable.
There needs to be a delegation of responsible leaders — Republicans or otherwise — who can sit you down as Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott once sat Richard Nixon down - and explain the **reality** of the situation you have created.

There needs to be… an apology from the President of the United States.
And more than one.
But, Mr. Bush, the others — for warnings unheeded five years ago, for war unjustified four years ago, for battle unprepared three years ago — they are not weighted with the urgency and necessity of this one. We must know that, to you…thought with which you disagree — and even voice with which you disagree - and even action with which you disagree — are still sacrosanct to you.
The philosopher Voltaire once insisted to another author, "I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write." Since the nation’s birth, Mr. Bush, we have misquoted and even embellished that statement, but we have served ourselves well, by subscribing to its essence.
Oddly, there are other words of Voltaire’s that are more pertinent still, just now. "Think for yourselves," he wrote, "and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too." Apologize, sir, for even hinting at an America where a few have that privilege to think — and the rest of us get yelled at by the President.

Anything else, Mr. Bush, is truly… unacceptable.

Bush to Address Key UN Gathering

US Muslims say Anti-Islam Bias on the Rise

Many More Dead in Iraq Blasts

Afghanistan hit by wave of suicide bombings

British soldier admits war crime

EARS SO MALIGNED

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Cameleon (Ben Heine)

"At this time I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims," the pope told pilgrims at his summer palace outside Rome.

When have our eyes been thus put upon,
Our ears so maligned with righteous lies?
Are the quarrels made of stone,
Immovable mass,
Waves so commanding they’re unable to give?

What words are such that they collapse upon people
And crush them with their enormous weight?
Surely not truth... for is not truth pure light?
Now in deceit;
Darkness can hold such noise come of late.

When words hold more in their darkness
Than are capable in summoning of light,
Are not then the words composed of gloom
And of no use…
Save for encouraging explicit destruction?

Words are our thoughts, not some ancient history
When they are embodied in such a warring world
And discharged from the mouths of its leaders;
Presidents or popes,
It’s all the same to the demoralized and weary.

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

Pope's speech: Archbishop urges calm

Cameleon (Ben Heine)

Nun Forgave Somalia Killers

OUR DESTINY SPEAKS BOLDLY, NOT WE

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Sep 16, 1387

Birth of Henry V king of England (1413-22) .

Sep 16, 1498

Tomas de Torquemada inquisitor who burned 10,000 people, dies.

Sep 16, 1662

Flamsteed sees solar eclipse, 1st known astronomical observation.

Sep 16, 1810

Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla summoned the largely Indian and mestizo congregation of his small Dolores parish church and urged them to take up arms and fight for Mexico's independence from Spain. His Grito de Delores, or Cry of Dolores, maintained the equality of all races and called for redistribution of land. Mexicans commemorate September 16 as Mexican Independence Day.

Sep 16, 1893

More than 100,000 white settlers swarmed onto a section of land in Oklahoma known as the Cherokee Strip.

Sep 16 1920

A horse-drawn carriage parked at the corner of Wall and Broad streets suddenly explodes just past mid-day. 100 pounds of dynamite hurls 500 pounds of steel shrapnel into a crowd of New Yorkers, killing 40 and wounding almost 300 others. No one is ever charged in the world's first car bombing.

Sep 16, 1940

President Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act, which set up the first peacetime military draft in U.S. history.

Sep 16, 1966

The Metropolitan Opera opened its new opera house at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Sep 16, 1971

6 Klansmen arrested in connection with bombing of 10 school buses.

Sep 16, 1974

President Ford announced a conditional amnesty program for Vietnam war deserters and draft-evaders.

Sep 16, 1976

The Episcopal Church, at its General Convention in Minneapolis, formally approved the ordination of women as priests and bishops.

Sep 16, 1978

25,000 die in 7.7 earthquake in Iran.

Sep 16, 1982

The massacre of hundreds of Palestinian men, women and children by Lebanese Christian militiamen began in west Beirut's Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps.

Sep 16, 1990

Iraq televises an 8 minute uncensored speech from George Bush.

Sep 16, 2001

President Bush pledged a crusade against terrorists, saying there was "no question" Osama bin Laden was the "prime suspect" in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Sep 16, 2006

President Bush has yet to be impeached and removed from office.

OUR DESTINY SPEAKS BOLDLY, NOT WE

Let destiny speak boldly, loudly, clearly…
So its audience might hear.
Let me speak plainly with a bard’s tongue;
"We are bursting; heavyhearted of war."

The place of our end marches not with our beginning;
Crashing planets were not man’s doing,
Creation was and is not ours;
Stars, rain, wind, snow, ice-
None of these are our attainable.
Even in our imagined freedom
We cannot lower or raise them on cue.

Our fate rests not with the inescapable mysteries,
For they cannot instill such impending, reckless tragedy.
They bring not our minds `round to staging murderous war.
Of our antagonist stained creature they cannot torture,
Beyond this, we’ve only ourselves.

Incapable of stunting our malevolent beast
Or tongueless, limbless horror sleeping in our cave,
Stars shine, rains fall, snows waft, winds blow, ice holds.

Does man not see he shall not shape it, the world’s plot?
That the end of its play’s been written in the air?
That nature moves outside our paper and pen?

If tomorrow the stage were emptied of killing and war
And McDonalds and Wal-Mart and poets
And boys and girls and men and women
And daughters, sons, mothers and fathers
And fowl and fish and animal and terror,
The world would be quite powerless
To impede such a roaring ovation.

We’ve set it down to man’s actions, to humanity’s grace,
And only as the curtain drops shall our horror enter the light.

BE STILL, MY HEART... GRAVE BREACH!

READ THE POEM +/-

ARTICLE 3

In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:
(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria. To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; (b) taking of hostages; (c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment; (d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.
(2) The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.
An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.
The Parties to the conflict should further endeavor to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.
The application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the Parties to the conflict.

O! Grave breach!
What is nameless but thy want?
Thy unsleeping terror
Blackening every life,
Shaking men to dishonor gods,
To repent and turn to Christ!
A god thou have dishonored
For a dream of a mad mad world
That breathes on its own
Yet smothers the truth
And calls it righteous!

Corruption sleeps `neath the mad mad moon
And wrangles its lies upon feet;
Feet of little children in its path,
Men and women imprisoned by its rumble
And lashed of the whip upon their back;
They know the noose fits tighter `round fear,
The noose, taut in terror and flesh.

The fiber that hangs on this,
The strand of delusion and tactic,
And the ghost of torture,
Move swiftly `cross the soiled cell
And scratch at strength
And probe the soul with fire
And lunge forth with snarling dogs,
Place an unclean hand
Upon another in scornful desire;
Mocks them and drowns them
Out a god they know as another.

Be still my soul! Be still!
The chains have yet to hold,

The bars have yet to keep,

The whip has yet to cut,
As this diversion of thy word
Makes mockery of intent,
And lets the dogs lunge
And loose consent of war,
Complicity of sin,
Approved head tapping
And the water board’s
dripping wet agony
Screaming in a hole,
A box
A cell
A shaft
A room
A hell.

O! Grave breach!
Thou hast taken `part the bible
God and Holy Trinity
Jesus, Allah and Yahweh
And the Messiah, Jehovah and Jah.
Thou hast tortured
With tormenting language.

Tortured God
By disquieting action.
Tortured ally and enemy
And hast tortured humanity
With the anguish of being
And stretched our limbs
Unreachable.

The chains have yet to hold,
The bars have yet to keep,
The whip has yet to cut,
And we have yet to live.

The four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Protocol 1 of 1977 each have a definition of what constitutes grave breaches.

GC 1 Art. 50.
Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the Convention: willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
... full text of the Convention

GC 2 Art 51.
Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the Convention: willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
... full text of the Convention

GC 3 Art 130.
Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the Convention: willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, compelling a prisoner of war to serve in the forces of the hostile Power, or willfully depriving a prisoner of war of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in this Convention.
... full text of the Convention

GC 4 Art. 147.
Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the present Convention: willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or willfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in the present Convention, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
... full text of the Convention

AP 1 Article 11 - Protection of persons
4. Any willful act or omission which seriously endangers the physical or mental health or integrity of any person who is in the power of a Party other than the one on which he depends and which either violates any of the prohibitions in paragraphs 1 and 2 or fails to comply with the requirements of paragraph 3 shall be a grave breach of this Protocol.
... full text of the Protocol

AP 1 Article 85 - Repression of breaches of this Protocol
2. Acts described as grave breaches in the Conventions are grave breaches of this Protocol if committed against persons in the power of an adverse Party protected by Articles 44, 45 and 73 of this Protocol, or against the wounded, sick and shipwrecked of the adverse Party who are protected by this Protocol, or against those medical or religious personnel, medical units or medical transports which are under the control of the adverse Party and are protected by this Protocol.

3. In addition to the grave breaches defined in Article 11, the following acts shall be regarded as grave breaches of this Protocol, when committed willfully, in violation of the relevant provisions of this Protocol, and causing death or serious injury to body or health:
(a) making the civilian population or individual civilians the object of attack;
(b) launching an indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population or civilian objects in the knowledge that such attack will cause excessive loss of life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects, as defined in Article 57, paragraph 2 (a)(iii);
(c) launching an attack against works or installations containing dangerous forces in the knowledge that such attack will cause excessive loss of life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects, as defined in Article 57, paragraph 2 (a)(iii);
(d) making non-defended localities and demilitarized zones the object of attack;
(e) making a person the object of attack in the knowledge that he is hors de combat;
(f) the perfidious use, in violation of Article 37, of the distinctive emblem of the red cross, red crescent or red lion and sun or of other protective signs recognized by the Conventions or this Protocol.

4. In addition to the grave breaches defined in the preceding paragraphs and in the Conventions, the following shall be regarded as grave breaches of this Protocol, when committed willfully and in violation of the Conventions or the Protocol:
(a) the transfer by the occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory, in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Convention;
(b) unjustifiable delay in the repatriation of prisoners of war or civilians;
(c) practices of apartheid and other inhuman and degrading practices involving outrages upon personal dignity, based on racial discrimination;
(d) making the clearly-recognized historic monuments, works of art or places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual heritage of peoples and to which special protection has been given by special arrangement, for example, within the framework of a competent international organization, the object of attack, causing as a result extensive destruction thereof, where there is no evidence of the violation by the adverse Party of Article 53, subparagraph (b), and when such historic monuments, works of art and places of worship are not located in the immediate proximity of military objectives;
(e) depriving a person protected by the Conventions or referred to in paragraph 2 of this Article of the rights of fair and regular trial.
... full text of the Protocol

Suheir Hammad - Def Poetry

Hear her! Feel her! Embrace her!

(Poem on Crisis of Terror)

by Suheir Hammad
New York, New York

Suheir Hammad is the author of "Born Palestinian, Born Black" (Harlem River Press, 1996) and other books.

First Writing Since

1. there have been no words.
i have not written one word.
no poetry in the ashes south of canal street.
no prose in the refrigerated trucks driving debris and dna.
not one word.

today is a week, and seven is of heavens, gods, science.
evident out my kitchen window is an abstract reality.
sky where once was steel.
smoke where once was flesh.

fire in the city air and i feared for my sister's life in a way never
before. and then, and now, i fear for the rest of us.

first, please god, let it be a mistake, the pilot's heart failed, the
plane's engine died.
then please god, let it be a nightmare, wake me now.
please god, after the second plane, please, don't let it be anyone
who looks like my brothers.

i do not know how bad a life has to break in order to kill.
i have never been so hungry that i willed hunger
i have never been so angry as to want to control a gun over a pen.
not really.
even as a woman, as a palestinian, as a broken human being.
never this broken.

more than ever, i believe there is no difference.
the most privileged nation, most americans do not know the difference
between indians, afghanis, syrians, muslims, sikhs, hindus.
more than ever, there is no difference.

2. thank you korea for kimchi and bibim bob, and corn tea and the
genteel smiles of the wait staff at wonjo the smiles never revealing
the heat of the food or how tired they must be working long midtown
shifts. thank you korea, for the belly craving that brought me into
the city late the night before and diverted my daily train ride into
the world trade center.

there are plenty of thank yous in ny right now. thank you for my
lazy procrastinating late ass. thank you to the germs that had me
call in sick. thank you, my attitude, you had me fired the week
before. thank you for the train that never came, the rude nyer who
stole my cab going downtown. thank you for the sense my mama gave me
to run. thank you for my legs, my eyes, my life.

3. the dead are called lost and their families hold up shaky
printouts in front of us through screens smoked up.

we are looking for iris, mother of three. please call with any
information. we are searching for priti, last seen on the 103rd
floor. she was talking to her husband on the phone and the line
went. please help us find george, also known as a! ! del. his family is
waiting for him with his favorite meal. i am looking for my son, who
was delivering coffee. i am looking for my sister girl, she started
her job on monday.

i am looking for peace. i am looking for mercy. i am looking for
evidence of compassion. any evidence of life. i am looking for
life.

4. ricardo on the radio said in his accent thick as yuca, "i will
feel so much better when the first bombs drop over there. and my
friends feel the same way."

on my block, a woman was crying in a car parked and stranded in hurt.
i offered comfort, extended a hand she did not see before she said,
"we"re gonna burn them so bad, i swear, so bad." my hand went to my
head and my head went to the numbers within it of the dead iraqi
children, the dead in nicaragua. the dead in rwanda who had to vie
with fake sport wrestling for america's attention.

yet when people sent emails saying, this was bound to happen, lets
! ! not forget u.s. transgressions, for half a second i felt resentful.
hold up with that, cause i live here, these are my friends and fam,
and it could have been me in those buildings, and we"re not bad
people, do not support america's bullying. can i just have a half
second to feel bad?

if i can find through this exhaust people who were left behind to
mourn and to resist mass murder, i might be alright.

thank you to the woman who saw me brinking my cool and blinking back
tears. she opened her arms before she asked "do you want a hug?" a
big white woman, and her embrace was the kind only people with the
warmth of flesh can offer. i wasn't about to say no to any comfort.
"my brother's in the navy," i said. "and we"re arabs". "wow, you
got double trouble." word.

5. one more person ask me if i knew the hijackers.
one more motherfucker ask me what navy my brother is in.
one more person assume no arabs or muslims were killed.one more person
assume they know me, or that i represent a people.
or that a people represent an evil. or that evil is as simple as a
flag and words on a page.

we did not vilify all white men when mcveigh bombed oklahoma.
america did not give out his family's addresses or where he went to
church. or blame the bible or pat robertson.

and when the networks air footage of palestinians dancing in the
street, there is no apology that hungry children are bribed with
sweets that turn their teeth brown. that correspondents edit images.
that archives are there to facilitate lazy and inaccurate
journalism.

and when we talk about holy books and hooded men and death, why do we
never mention the kkk?

if there are any people on earth who understand how new york is
feeling right now, they are in the west bank and the gaza strip.

6. today it is ten days. last night bush waged war on a man once
openly funded by the
cia. i do not know who is responsible. read too many books, know
too many people to believe what i am told. i don't give a fuck about
bin laden. his vision of the world does not include me or those i
love. and petittions have been going around for years trying to get
the u.s. sponsored taliban out of power. shit is complicated, and i
don't know what to think.

but i know for sure who will pay.

in the world, it will be women, mostly colored and poor. women will
have to bury children, and support themselves through grief. "either
you are with us, or with the terrorists" - meaning keep your people
under control and your resistance censored. meaning we got the loot
and the nukes.

in america, it will be those amongst us who refuse blanket attacks on
the shivering. those of us who work toward social justice, in
support of civil liberties, in opposition to hateful foreign
policies.

i have never felt less american and more new yorker, particularly
brooklyn, than these past days. the stars and stripes on all these
cars and apartment windows represent the dead as citizens first, not
family members, not lovers.

i feel like my skin is real thin, and that my eyes are only going to
get darker. the future holds little light.

my baby brother is a man now, and on alert, and praying five times a
day that the orders he will take in a few days time are righteous and
will not weigh his soul down from the afterlife he deserves.

both my brothers - my heart stops when i try to pray - not a beat to
disturb my fear. one a rock god, the other a sergeant, and both
palestinian, practicing muslim, gentle men. both born in brooklyn
and their faces are of the archetypal arab man, all eyelashes and
nose and beautiful color and stubborn hair.

what will their lives be like now?

over there is over here.

7. all day, across the river, the smell of burning rubber and limbs
floats through. the sirens have stopped now. the advertisers are
back on the air. the rescue workers are traumatized. the skyline is
brought back to human size. no longer taunting the gods with its
height.

i have not cried at all while writing this. i cried when i saw those
buildings collapse on themselves like a broken heart. i have never
owned pain that needs to spread like that. and i cry daily that my
brothers return to our mother safe and whole.

there is no poetry in this. there are causes and effects. there are
symbols and ideologies. mad conspiracy here, and information we will
never know. there is death here, and there are promises of more.

there is life here. anyone reading this is breathing, maybe hurting,
but breathing for sure. and if there is any light to come, it will
shine from the eyes of those who look for peace and justice after the
rubble and rhetoric are cleared and the phoenix has risen.

affirm life.
affirm life.
we got to carry each other now.
you are either with life, or against it.
affirm life.

Suheir Hammad's Official Website

DARFUR DOWN

READ THE POEM +/-

Western policy is in near despair over Darfur, and governments are turning to Russia and China to see if they can put pressure on the Sudanese government to accept a UN peacekeeping force.
"There is a critical period now when the whole
international community has to use its influence on Sudan,"
the British Minister for Africa Lord Triesman told reporters.

The plains are quiet under the forlorn Sudan
The people wilt like flowers planted beneath the sand
From rape and murder and starvation

Of unfed mouths
Unfed hope
Love
Care
Humanity

Consumed by the Janjaweed
Ravaged by the Baggara
Descendents of grand tribes
Lost

And moving

Down
Roving the sands
And hopeless sun
Stopping only to
Plant gardens

Down
Push the black seed

Down
Into the empty guts
Of Darfur

Down
Again
Darfur

Down

The hunters raid
The rapists thieve
The murderers slay
Lacerating fatality

Down
Upon the child’s teeth

Down
Upon the mother’s bones

Down
Upon the father’s strapped back
Trickling

Down
Oozing

Down
A growing loss
Infection
The seeds of genocide
Blooming

Down
Flowering

Down
The zenith of rot
Rising down
Now a wailing
Weeping
Desperate
Sobbing
Fearful
Bawling
Hopeless
Howling

O! Baggara!
O! Janjaweed!
O! America!
O! World!

Tempests of butchery
And burials

Burials don’t rise

Burials don’t sprout up like flowers

Blooming to fragrant air

Burials grow
Down
Descending

Down
Into the dark

Seeking

The deep fetid dwelling
Of hopelessness

Of greed

Of starvation

Of shrieking hell

Of the decomposing stench
Heaving Heaving Heaving

Down Down Down
Swelling upon the child’s lips

Down
Across the mother’s breasts

Down
Through the father’s hands

Down
Over the nation’s love

Down
Upon the world’s hope

Down

-Stop-

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT, GEORGE WALKER BUSH,

READ THE POEM +/-

(Due to the brutal and graphic nature of this crime scene and the ongoing investigation there is no picture available at this time.)

I’d like to take this opportunity to express my thoughts
and with all due respect, speak bluntly, Mr. President.
Nothing in particular really, just a random chain
of cognitive ideas wrought by your blundering
half-cocked-swagger-accented-“heh”-times three-strut
that tumbles out your Milli Vanilli cowboy giddy-up spittoon
wet with nothing coherent, or true, or resembling good English,
or honor, trust, strength, anything at all respectable,
or even within an nth of godliness, just a haphazard chain
of disingenuous spaghetti westernized one-liners
of insidious claptrap-twaddle-rubbish gurgling
and splattering projectile spittle out down
and on your never-been-man-enough-to-do-anything-on-your-own-without-daddy-or-mommy-or-your-team-of-sycophant-whispering-sweet-nukular-nothings-in-your-ear-of-never-had-any-real-character-to- speak-of and reflecting upon your heroes- Larry Curly Moe and the oft ignored Shemp- never contemplated anything greater than your own tired reflection and silver-spoon-fed-n-filled-hubris of self-righteous holier than thou too big for your wranglers pickup truck boot wearin’ horse trailer self absorbed selfish self-helplessness that splatters up down and `round your mindless yammering silhouette sauntering a black witless shipless hapless soul in-front of God and human-kind like a poorly written character in a yet to be written novel idea of an empty-headed nowhere to be home-schooled prick who never arrived on time and time again with fool tattooed on your foreheaded out the saloon door holding your six-shooter decider deciding your God before God can get a smote in edgewise and your not and you’ve never been but you’ve plummeted into the idea of failing and wailing and railing and it’s not getting hard and she needs you to satisfy her hunger and you don’t want to feel less than the man you know you’re never going to be so you wrench her arms behind her back and slam her face hard into the mattress and cotton blend sheets like so many times before belly down she whimpers face down muffled by the Slumber-Core Pillow prostrate in shame like so many times before feeling useless and angry and vengeful and old and that gets you peaked and madder and that gets you harder!
Hard as a reinforced steel tower!
Nothing’s gonna bring you down!
You’ve already gone too far-fetched the rigid-bone-of-your-dead-and-dying and you can’t won’t don’t let her know you’re a frightened peeing in your pants thumb-sucking lip-smacking rude adolescent as you drive it deeper and harder and more brutal and she cries for you to stop and she bleeds and with each thrust you drive it deeper and she bleeds more with every crashing descent penetrating her walls knowing that the enemy of self-knowledge can’t redeem your weakness and tearing flesh and delivery of pain and suffering so you slam into her with all your rotting might tearing her open rending her flesh and bone!
Watching the blood spill out of her you put on a grin knowing you’re the man you’re the drugstore cowboy clanking spurs proving your manhood
showing the world you’re not a faggoty ass faggot!
Hell no! You’re a man! "Man" the way God intended!
And you won’t don’t can’t stop pummeling her even as she screams that you’re killing her and she screams and she screams and you again feel your blood boiling from her battle cries! You grab her by the neck and thrust and choke and split and cut and spit and the blood on your hands clinches her throat! She won’t stop flailing! Screaming! So you give her a desperate yank! Again! Again! She stops moving...
Your vile semen and sweat
mix with her miles of blood and death
and heaven comes
and she leaves her body
and her oath
and rises from the basin
and barren
she lies there lifeless
eyes wide open
still you drive deep into her
proving, only to yourself,
that you’re not in your final throes
you’ve found a weapon of mass destruction
the evil you battle and pledge to kill
actually exists just outside the reflection
of your halfcocked arrogance and strut…

Sincerely,
thepoetryman

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

(For those that must see pictures of the attack,
although I can't imagine such voyeurism being so desirable,
you can see the crime at Ben Heine - Cartoons…if you must…)

Caution- acute intolerance and convoluted scurrility contained within.

Sexual Violence: Fact Sheet

The World Can't Wait

Raping the World