O! White birds fly down the raging river line
And white hot are the sun’s rays bathing the shore,
And I think of this war and of my own borrowed complicity
That will be my shrieking, loathsome marrow felt forevermore!
You cast it masterfully, dangling your lure
Of every feeble people’s swindler in your damn book.
You’d rather not have “pull out” swim the raging water,
But it’s out there! The nibblers bleed from your despotic hook!
I think of all the Iraqi people, and I weep.
And of their homes and shame at having believed in us;
Freedom, democracy, clean water, safe streets, living;
I think of your lies and at once am asphyxiated by our oily lust!
O! The white birds flying the river can see it,
They can see the shoreline and they can see the nectar,
They glimpse a fabrication in America’s half-truths,
For they see the ancient beauty of Iraq swilling in fumes of war!
The bird senses our pandering, illicit ambition,
The looming and buckling hell of shorelines stony crust
As the warring winds change course for eastern shores
And would hold you from humanity if given reign over the quaking dust!
Copyright © 2006 mrp
