Put a single bullet in the palm of your hand…
It lays there, obedient, glistening, motionless,
Weighing no more than a thought.
Sew all grenades into the sleeves of white dress shirts
Making sure to leave the pins fully engaged
And they shall never again need ironing.
Gently lower all IEDs to the furthest depths of the sea
Among the amazing and peculiar mysteries of the deep
And strange creatures shall dance to their silence.
Place all the military tanks on the planet into large pots,
Stoke all the furnaces and melt them down into a liquid
And from them erect millions of rolling libraries.
Hang all rifles and handguns from the surface of the moon
Like an airplane mobile or a holiday tree ornament
And listen to the wind make a joyful noise.
Sculpt all manner of bombs into enormous statues,
Whose eyes look down and whose brows are furrowed,
And merrily stare back into their dreary faces.
Place a world of peace in the palm of your hand…
Feel it gently breathing, exhaling through your fingers,
Weighing no more than imagination.
© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman
Rolling along "M"...
My Past, My Present and My Future
My Past, My Present, My Future
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide truck bomber struck a market in a predominantly Shiite area of Baghdad on Saturday, killing as many as 121 people among the crowd buying food for evening meals, one of the most devastating attacks in the capital since the war started.
The attacker was driving a truck carrying foodstuffs including oil and flour when he detonated a ton of explosives, destroying stores and stalls in the busy outdoor Sadriyah market, police said.
The late-afternoon explosion was the latest in a series of attacks against mainly Shiite commercial targets in the capital. No group claimed responsibility, but it appeared to be part of a bid by Sunni insurgents to provoke retaliatory violence and kill as many people as possible ahead of a planned U.S.-Iraqi security sweep.
Hours later, mortars slammed into several predominantly Sunni areas in Baghdad, killing at least two people and wounding nearly 20, police said.
pitching providence
“Now goddamnit, now, as the burning flesh is fresh in our head.
Lord knows we can’t miss our darling reality flick of ineffectuality.
O god forbid we peer beyond the shrub and see death-death-death.
Oh no, can’t have us considering the child’s blood on our hands.
That’d mean we’d need consider our own pitching providence.”
…muttered the rain on the limb-strewn streets as we flipped channels.
Yes! Son of a bitch! Yes! I said “our own pitching providence”!
I say it that one might sneer, snicker and scoff such silliness!
I say it that others might think,
“That guy’s fanatical!”
“That man’s off his meds! This is America!”
“The greatest country on earth!”
“Ours is the sopping land of liberty!”
“The kingdom of all things divine!”
Yes! O goddamnit! Yes! I shout it for the dim-witted inundated in lies!
I utter it for the delusional crouch-down-toad deriding the spirit to speak!
I declare it for it’s in front of us screeching, bloody and boiling!
Look! Look! There! Descending the stairs is this awful something!
This thing, it pours all the magnificence and misery down upon us!
Descending the stairway dripping with the fresh blood of others,
It comes down dripping the hopelessness wrought of greed and arrogance!
Look! Look goddamnit! In its arms it carries the vanishing world!
One-hundred and twenty!
One hundred and twenty lifted by the tall indignity of empire!
Lifted apart by those waiting on god to intervene on their behalf!
We are fools! It is not on our behalf that god shall the earth render still!
It is not on our behalf that the long and towering indignity carts the world!
It’s because of our dishonor that humanity needs such nurturing at all!
Our apathy rivals any in the goddamned history of fouled indifference!
“Now goddamnit, America. Do it now you red-lipped whore of free will.
Start praising your miserable god now, America, now, as the burning flesh is fresh on our hands and we scoff at this; our pitching providence...”
Muttered the rain on the limb-strewn streets as we flipped channels.