WE MAY HAVE ALREADY...

Loved everything and everyone worth hating
And hated everyone and everything worth loving

Recognized everybody we’re ever going to know
With a sideways glance in a dime store trench coat

Memorized all the arrogant words to our country’s anthem
Forgetting how to say “thank you” and “you’re welcome”

Neglected to learn the golden lessons
Shared by the old whore’s toothless hum

Found new enemies easier to make
Than keeping old friends along the way

Become invisible under our own skins
(Within a cubicle is no place to expect miracles
We’ll find God in a sandbox, breathing in the oil that holds us there)

Succumbed to freedom’s aneurysm
Wrist sliced open like a vanilla sky
On a September morning's baptism

Fallen, flailing to the ashen ground
Like a Raggedy Ann doll
Tossed out the mouths of a pair of tall clowns

“Is that a bird?”

“No! It’s a child dropped from God’s hand!”

“Move along, folks. Nothing new to see here.
Move along now. Next stop- Disney Land!”

Died several times over
Our corpse a twisted metal frame
Smoldering at the foot of consumption

Inhaled a snout full of a white, powdery substance
As we lingered a bit too long in the airport terminal
Waiting on our own delayed wings to come in
Waiting to feel them burst through our flesh and bone
Only to run screaming, like a suicide bomber, to the nearest pharmacy
In search of painkillers and a magazine for the long flight home.


© 2008 mrp/tpm

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THE WIND

(A Poetic Justice Photomontage)


Would I hold my hand thus if I were such a murderous beast?
Asked the wolf…
Would I be thought a monster like you if I howled in horror?
Asked the sheep…
I howl for pleasure, little sheep! I consume to nourish my sorrow!
Scolded the wolf…
I do not mean to offend your howling or persuade your hunger, sir.
Prayed the sheep….
See my opposing thumb and how it can bring me such pleasure?
Inquired the wolf…
See my shivering hooves and how they frustrate me significantly?
Echoed the sheep…

The wind now wails its bitter speech as the wolf skulks nearer.

Come! Let us sit next to one another and we shall drink a toast.
Said the wolf…
I shouldn’t. It’s not right to do so while so many continue to perish.
Replied the sheep…
Thou art afraid of me, dam? Me? A creature with such manners?
Crooned the wolf…
No. I- I- I just don’t think it appropriate to toast on this- of all days.
Answered the sheep…
But this is a day of triumph! Today’s the best day to drink to victory!
Howled the wolf…
There you go again with the howling? I told you my lambs are sleeping.
Whispered the sheep…

The wind abruptly strengthens with the crow of murderous night.

Yes. Please forgive me, sheep…. …Your lambkins are precious to you?
Posed the wolf…
All babies are precious, wolf. Are yours not precious to you?
Raised the sheep…
Of course they’re precious! I would, without a doubt, kill for them!
Charged the wolf…
Of that I’m sure. But haven’t I asked you to keep your voice down?
Sighed the sheep…
Yes. But aren’t you sufficiently fearful of offending me, little ewe?
Urged the wolf…
I have not offended you, wolf. It is you that will not do as I’ve asked.
Rejoined the sheep…

The wolf now howls with a beast’s bloody bravado!

I do not believe this- Before me is a sheep that’s utterly lacking in fear?
Marveled the wolf…
I’ve fear enough. It is your opposing thumbs that are rigid with terror.
Said the sheep.

The wind stops its screeching and the sheep suckles her babies.

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

Rolling along "O"...

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NUMBERS

(Ben Heine - Cartoons)

Why stop at 935 when an election is just around the corner?

from

Open Letters to George W. Bush

from his ardent admirer, Belacqua Jones

Dear George,

Just as the sight of crocuses peaking through the soiled snows of March are harbingers of spring, so is the dealing of the Terror Card the harbinger of another election cycle. Once again, you are trotting out the strategy that has kept you in office for so long: If you scare the chickens enough, they will vote for the fox.

It is a thing of beauty. First you create imaginary shadows, and then in every imaginary shadow you hide an imaginary terrorist skulking down Main Street America, ready to blow up the local soda shoppe where America’s clean-cut teenagers hang out.

Your Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell says it so, so it must be so. And we must believe it is so, and our faith must be perfect, untainted by doubt, because if our faith is not perfect and it we allow the 935 lies that led up to your Iraq enterprise plant to a seed of doubt in our minds, we may wonder if the next utterance that comes out of your administration’s collective mouth might not be lie number 936.

National Security demands perfect faith. Just as the Rapture shall come; so are droves of terrorists rowing across the Atlantic in route to Main Street. (MORE...)

NUMBERS NEVER LIE
a poem by thepoetryman

O, now your voice is that of truth?
What happened to yesterdays street lamp that the swimming fog
painted with terror,
and the plane upon the sky
with brown men wielding loss; what’s come of their design?
What of the bell ringing with freedoms magnificence
where freedom was and freedoms no more?
Where do you think these numbers fit, brandishing such menace?

O where is the mighty hero, the soldier child, the marine
whose breath wafted over the border pleading to pass on,
wailing in grief the loss of life in the sand
as talons lash his ankle to the very ground he guards?

These numbers speak a blood-spattered speech
and call forth an acrid air that fills the lungs
with its seed and it hemorrhages and bleeds
over your torture bending our will!

Why must you again with your slump of thievery
trudge upon our malleable expectation?
Why have you entered such dismal days
as to end our breathing?

To the apathetic hordes hearing, sensing nothing,
to the naked and dead calling their voices down,
to the mystified living worshipping your words,
to the angry and vengeful whose lion is pacing,
to the bitter and downtrodden without a voice,
to the hopeful and wishful locked away praying,
your belief’s as empty as its messenger.
Your savior’s a swaggering sham,
nine hundred and thirty-five...
Like dread he comes again!
Numbers never lie.

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

FOLLOW

O they’ve followed us home!
O home! O home! O home!
They’ve followed us home!
So why are we failing
And so damned alone?

We need see ourselves in their shadow,
If not, then see to their reasons.
Why only listen for their moist-plodding feet
Rumbling our fears rooted in seasons?

Why do we shiver and gasp at their specter;
Ghosts of our own image-and-nation,
Phantoms embarking of invisible caravan
Coming to carry us away from creation?

O home! O home! O homeward they’re marching!
Calling from graves of political deception,
Motioning to us from barren street lamps,
Thrashing down alleys and streaking the sky
Bringing their wrath upon pale conceptions.

O home! O home! O homeward they’re striding!
The least of them nearing our beckoning nation,
Moaning and groaning, intriguing our children
With movie passes and soda and popcorn salvation.

O home! O home! They’re following us home
To sit by the fire and move us to seething,
To cudgel our hopes, mislead and threaten
The chord of our most dire illusions,
Carrying passports to virgins waiting in heaven...

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

Previous Post - WAR AND SHAME

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN

Remains of Three More Sept. 11 Victims Identified

Remains recovered years ago of three victims from the Sept. 11 attacks have been identified through new DNA testing. Two were passengers on American Airlines Flight 11; the third victim's identity was withheld at the family's request. Identities of about 40 percent of the 2,749 victims have never been confirmed.


Where have you been?

In the space flanked by breathing
in the sky's soul
resting `neath the globe?

We’ve been waiting
under the moon for you,
waiting on your bones to say,
“Living may resume”.

Where are the others?

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

THIS; THE SIXTH YEAR OF OUR WAR

READ THE POEM +/-

The Navy lawyer who led a successful Supreme Court challenge of the Bush administration's military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo Bay has been passed over for promotion and will have to leave the military, The Miami Herald reported Sunday
~
Morning Edition, October 11, 2006 · A new report estimates that violence in Iraq has left over 650,000 civilians dead since March 2003. The report by a team of American and Iraqi public health researchers is by far the highest estimate of war-related deaths in Iraq.
~
More than 2,660 Iraqi civilians were killed in the capital in September amid a wave of sectarian killings and insurgent attacks, an increase of 400 over the month before, according to figures from the Iraqi Health Ministry.
~
BAGHDAD, Oct. 11 — An 82-millimeter mortar round fired by militia forces struck an ammunition holding area at an American base in Baghdad late last night, igniting a fire and huge explosions when it touched off tank and artillery shells and small arms ammunition stored there, the American military said today.
No injuries were reported from the incident, which the American military said would not affect security operations.
Attack jets and unmanned drones were deployed to try to locate the mortar from the air, while soldiers and other personnel at the base moved to hardened shelters.
Residents all over Baghdad could see the explosions against the night sky and feel the force of the exploding ammunition from a distance.
“Intelligence indicates that civilians aligned with a militia organization were responsible for last night’s mortar attack,” said Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington, an Army spokesman, in the statement today.
~
More than 300,000 Iraqis have fled their homes for other parts of Iraq to escape sectarian violence, the Iraqi minister for immigration has said.
The migration has picked up in the last six months amid increasing Sunni-Shia violence and is further deepening the country's sectarian divisions, Abdul-Samad Sultan said on Tuesday.
Some 890,000 other Iraqis have also moved to Jordan, Iran and Syria in the last three years, he said.
~

THIS; THE SIXTH YEAR OF OUR WAR

O! The half-starved nourishment will soon be complete!

Needlework, weaver of dreams... retire them.
Finish the pre-o-one warrior, end them, goddamnit!
Sprout new and green and less rebellious fighters!
Harvest mindless drones to foment the business of dying!

Our occupation of body and soul, of bombs, rape and thievery,
of blasted hope and splintered death, I take comfort in knowing
my God-spittled poems wrangled the most in them and me
and the least in me and them; these warriors built of indoctrination, constructed and instructed, programmed in wholesome insanity,
I can rest easy, eyes closed, knowing I am safe in this;
The Sixth Year of Our War.

I want to believe that this other creature… terror,
will spare me that I may watch from the comfort of my own cave,
see mere bits, shards and pieces flying apart,
Watch them filter in... detached from my own fading.

I would rather watch them, they, others,
see them... over there...
There be blown to bits, twisted in far away wreckage
than hear and see such misery before me over here…

O! Goddamnit! God damnit! God damn it! Goddamned war
is strafing my senses in the darkness of my very shape,
pointing to the heavens, arcing over the eye
like a meteor bringing home the dead,
violently attacking and tormenting my imagination!

O! Blistering comet pulling me in, you’re the needle, I’m the thread!

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman



Detainee Lawyer Must Leave Navy

The Left End Of the Dial - 655,000 perish

BAGHDAD BURNING... OUR THROATS

READ THE POEM +/-

This morning while responding to a Crooks and Liars post I found myself swept into a poem… The post was regarding a new play by Riverbend , a 25-year-old Iraqi woman living in Baghdad prior, during and after the invasion. It is dramatised by a cast of five young American actors. ( More of the review…)

My comment-
A play worth watching and remembering sounds like to me... Being a theatrical person I can say that the bit about history is more than just self-obsession...in most cases it is the way it is. Poetry, theatre, film, music, prose...somehow, some way, it all trickles down and into an artist's hands... Pompous sounding on the surface, but of what I have seen in my lifetime, it is the voice that at large would be unspoken, for, in many an instance, the words won't come out due to fear, pain, or intimidation... To hell with "patriotism" and all its foibles!

____________________

BAGHDAD BURNING...OUR THROATS

In the shading of your persistent speechless death
We cannot help be unsettled by your passion.
Now, just as the world boils, increased in suffering
Do we begin to sense brittle-boned-humanity.

A drama worth its ink, recoiled, unfolds inside us,
Leaping in our throats, coursing through our veins,
Diving deep, like a jilted lover’s plea, it swims through.
Wounded and yelping it tosses inside our existence
Telling us things we’d never tell ourselves...

The drama says, bring forth your lies
For they'll not penetrate truth.
Bring forth thy warmongering spirit
For it shall not dance.
It will flounder here... dreadfully.
Treading upon the boards, characterized as horrific,
Slumping; a dreadful creature, writhing, sweating
`neath the canopy of light.

The drama says,
Look! Look!
There you are, lumbering in final breath!
You coward!
You defiled wretch!
Bedraggled death!

Your countenance now but a shadow
As the lights begin to fade.
You may come cloaked in dream
But you’ve been seen
And we’ve felt your sodden breath upon our soul
From a city where no-one knows
If they will see another day.



Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman
________________________

Baghdad Burning On Stage C&L

Riverbend Blogspot

BBC News Review of Play

Tell ABC to Tell the Truth About 9/11

Poetic Justice Theatre

THE ANIMAL WE WANT

READ THE POEM +/-

When the animal we wanted to be
Hasn't come forth,
Couldn't climb into this world
Through spaces vast window,
And we hear a distant hum,
As if it is weeping a million miles away
At not having the courage to even try,
And we feel its loss inside of us
And we conjure what might have been,
Perhaps we should simply rise up
And not sit so far away from life
And stop this, our incessant dreaming
Of new ways to conquer and destroy.

When the animal we wanted to be
Hasn’t reared its beautiful head,
Perhaps it is afraid it might be the uglier
Or fearful it will fail us
And we’d drop our bombs
And blast a hole clean through imagination...
Or, perhaps it has no desire to draw closer;
It hears our weeping a million miles away,
And heeds our mournful whimper
At not having the courage to end
Our warring and wholesale butchery,
And it feels our loss deep inside
And sees what it might have been.


Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

TERROR'S HAND

READ THE POEM +/-

The Real Terrorism Plot
By Ramzy Baroud
Al-Jazeerah, August 24, 2006

And yet another menacing terror plot was thwarted 10 August, with the arrest of 24 suspects, all British Muslims. It was an ominous conspiracy aimed at committing "mass murder" on an "unimaginable" scale, British authorities quickly concluded. US authorities hastily joined the action, too claiming a decisive victory over the plotters, thanks in part to the quick thinking of and awesome coordination between US security and intelligence branches. Britain congratulated the US; the US thanked Britain; both saluted Pakistan and its ever-loyal leadership, itself conducting a brutal war against undefined, shadowy groups that emerge and vanish, all too conveniently, and too neatly.
Moments after the shocking announcement, as security threat levels reached their peak in the US and Britain, the debate commenced and it relentlessly continues: Why would a British Muslim choose such a destructive path while living in a democratic society, where change, at least theoretically, is possible through peaceful means?
The media also sprung into action. Ready-to-serve answers were deftly provided by all the usual experts, instantly infusing more conventional wisdom upon a vulnerable public. Attempts to contextualise terrorism within a political milieu were decidedly torpedoed. Despite years of war that seem to have achieved nothing but "mass murder" on an "unimaginable" scale, no one should dare explain the true roots of terrorism; one may explain why poor neighbourhoods in America yield greater crime rates than others, or why abused children become abusers themselves, or even why US soldiers in Iraq often "snap" and massacre entire families, but terrorism that involves Muslims should not in any way be discussed outside its useful parameters of a misguided generation with a radical interpretation of religion: the Islam that produces "Muslim fascists" as President George W Bush termed it. (More…)


Terror’s immense unbent machine rumbles
From end to end of the blast-crested streets
Of civilized man like a freshly-filed talon to flesh;
And the screeching recoils against the red sky
And the plagued ocean smolders.
Terror’s depth is roused
By lies and the spineless realm
Of authority
Pointing eastward with a westward hand.

We, insensible spectator, stand open-mouthed
To the eagle’s rasp upon our human face;
And the snap of the shudder, too slow,
Find terror rooted shoulder to shoulder,
Glossy eyed, draped in ruin,
Panting to soar heavenward
And spatter the face of God.
.....We can no more this
.....Than return to the womb.



Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

ANTHRAX- STALKING OF AMERICA

READ THE POEM +/-

It was called Anthrax. And Bush still hasn't caught the killer. So next time Bush/Cheney claim we haven't been hit again, ask them what happened to the Anthrax killer.


Bacillus Acute, political malady
This, our land bursts with anthracic disease
Flesh-dead center eating fast away
enveloped in rhetoric
Chained in spit
Black-necrotic
...Political death
Bring it `round, bring it `round
Our frail intellect
Political beast to the letter
Infect us, see death detected
Bacillus Acute, political malady
Our land bursts in anthracic disease
...Political death
We need a people-freed
Filtrate vaccine to bring Democracy
Flesh-dead-center eating `way our breath
Enveloped in rhetoric
Chained in spit
Black-necrotic
...Political-death


Copyright 2006 mrp / thepoetryman


ANTHRAX

Anthrax Suspect(s) are Likely in the US Government

AMERICAblog

UNdone

READ THE POEM +/-

We are warned by the fixed pulse of the din
Booming above the famished howl of the wind.

Our wounds seem to crest with each new sun
The bridled sting of truth too great to mount.

Our toppling has begun,
Our marriage with war,
Our alliance
With oil-drumming terror.

With a rat-a-tat-tat
Boom, boom, tum!
Rat-a-tat! Rat-a-tat!
Boom that drum!

The leaf wafts to this; our solemn ground;
The tree might know its time’s come `round
Yet sees, hears not our noisy murder,
Bleeds sap, cries not for our failure.

We are warned by the fixed pulse of our war
Booming aloft the famished howl of blunder
In our oil-drumming terror

With a rat-a-tat-tat!
Boom, boom, tum!
Rat-a-tat!
Rat-a-tat!
Boom that drum!

Copyright 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

Again thank Ashraf for the link!

gOD

First bloom
Bomb
IED
Sacrament
Deity
Folded pain
Given thee
…A plea
…A grasp
…A hope
…A bomb
…An IED
…An unfurrowed pain
…An offering to thee
Bloom
Bomb
IED
Children
Ache
Forfeit
Thee
…Take this tree, gOD
…Take this flower
…Crush this stone
…This father
…This mother
…Arid land
…Emptiness
We are
In your image
Beautiful
Furious
Loving
Failing


Copyright © 2006 mrp

A woman is carried across rubble in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbail.

ANOTHER MEASURE OF SWAY

$65.8 billion will be rushed to the Pentagon so it can continue fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan through September.


Give this a grace beyond man
With the striding panther pacing in our night
Amid the screeching rodents in our dreams
With the sordid and clanging thirst in our day
Amid the weeping mothers and fathers
With the purity of softly deserving fresh jaws
Amid the calamity wrought upon innocence

Give this purity that it holds sway
With one man’s failure of another man’s country
With the shrieking shell of penniless promises
The dismal hoot of youthful warriors
And the disintegrated fingers of tiny hands

Give this fund a purpose set askew
With less for death
With less for anguish
Less for tortured reasoning
Let us have less of contempt

Use our riches to breathe hope into life
We are the victor for this
We are the better for this
Give us the words that sway the minds
Of our powers and their fluid riches
For these are the times upon the back of poetry
That will bring joy… or detonate in rage.

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman

When Two Dictators Meet

Greenwald

Thoughts From a Flyover State

The Truth Will Set You Free

LEAVE THE BOX CUTTER, CARRY THE LIE

For this flight
Have we enough food
To nourish our dark and horrid famine?
Have we plenty water
To ease across the razor’s barren edge?
Have we sufficient breath
To coax this; our collusion deep within?
Have we ample shelter
From this; our own deceitful tomb?

(Truth. Have we none?)

Who needs the goddamned truth?
Lies, for us, are more valuable,
Made to easily pass through
The takeoff's devising eyes.
It’s the clever packing of truth and lies
Into a single carry-on that is the trick.

(Lies?)

Yes!
It won’t turn the plane’s shadow into flame.

(Flame?)

Yes!
It won’t cut the neck of our slipshod freedom.

(Freedom?)

Yes!
It won’t bring massive terror to our shores.

(Terror? Freedom? Flame?)

Yes! Lies! You goddamned traitor!
Lies; packed together as one
They more easily sound round
Edging near enough to truth.



Copyright © 2006 mrp

FIFTH COLUMN

"the United States, it is likely to be used only during periods of significant political unrest affecting countries near to the United States. Such unrest, quite apart from its impact in creating a large number of refugees, may constitute a serious threat to the United States, which could result in the deployment of military forces. This contract requires an immediate stand up of facilities that will receive a large influx of refugees. It is
anticipated that the refugees will not speak the language, and the circumstances may
involve a hostile environment within the camp. Consequently, a potential for violence will exist in the camps. While there may or may not be a deployment of U.S. troops, there certainly will be a deployment of border patrol and other law enforcement agents, in a quasi-military manner."

"The administration has not only the right, but the duty, in my opinion, to pursue
Fifth Column movements. I stand by this president's ability, inherent to being
commander in chief, to find out about Fifth Column movements, and I don't think you need a warrant to do that." -- Senator Graham Senate Judiciary Committee hearings (02-06-06)

The Fifth Column’s encircled in taunting wire

The petite golden broods were skipping upon
the road when they heard intense construction
near a riverbank. They topped the hill near the
water’s edge and giggled, because they thought
they shouldn’t see, but they peered over.
They saw huge beams being erected and witnessed
the colossal rolls of violently pointed wire and the
distant noise and movement of godlike machinery.
As they observed, a huge man came up behind them!

“Hey! What the hell are you damned kids doing here?”

The children screamed in terror and quickly fell away!

“I better not catch you here again you little bastards!”

The man waved to the machines...
...they did not wave back.

The fifth column’s encircled in tumbling wire;
Yes! It won’t be long! It won’t be long now
`til the wobbly giant, America, slumbers again,
Nestled in her veneer of fervent patriotism.
Protracted in her brightly cleaved almighty!

It won’t be long now that night won’t sleep,
When its faces wrinkle with bewilderment
Of our day’s horror tapping on shackled feet
And we see that there is no escaping torment.
(Barbed wire is not very forgiving of dissent)!

A brazenly deluded sentinel is immovable.
Insurmountable walls give not of your care.
The daggers of empire’s wolf gnaws the flesh
That cowers in servitude and shrouded despair.
(Is this truly what we most desire; our dying)?

Are we to subserviently offer to take our place
At the wanton trough of jaw-gaping oppression?
Is it our desire to end such freedom in disgrace,
With our children bowed in their broken spirit
And bloodied at the watery hands of surrender?

The fifth column’s encircled in tumbling wire;
It won’t be long! Tyranny shall not delay;
It waits on nothing, not even America’s fire
Nestled in her veneer of colorless flag waving
And jangle of, “home of the free and the brave”!



Inspired by a post on A la Gauche