DEPLETED

O! This still night jostles the dripping center
Bringing closer our wedding of dark breath
Strapped to the chest in an intelligent design
And stirring the cackled graves of the suffering;
Thousands of them slain in the time it takes
A tall building to implode in a torrent of flesh
Or in the span of dreaming up a new God.

O! The still night quickens our oozing core
Rending nearer our pitching dream.
On its back rides a chattering ugly thing
Made of our thoughts and our hunger.
It’s come to anoint our feet with moist lips
And place a wreath `round our neck
And call us savior, liberator and murderer.

(Like I said, it’s a chattering ugly thing…)

FIERY ARCHANGEL

Iraq’s environment minister blamed Monday the use of depleted uranium weapons by U.S. forces during the 2003 Operation Shock and Awe for the current surge in cancer cases across the country.
As a result of “at least 350 sites in Iraq being contaminated during bombing” with depleted uranium (DU) weapons, Nermin Othman said, the nation is facing about 140,000 cases of cancer, with 7,000 to 8,000 new ones registered each year.
Speaking at a ministerial meeting of the Arab League, she also complained that many chemical plants and oil facilities had been destroyed during the two military campaigns since the 1990s, but the ecological consequences remain unclear.

(A Poetic Justice Photomontage)

Do we not feel the fiery archangel's eyes
when tumors grow from our touch?

So black, so deadened... Numb is this hollowness
as the world watches our march upon graves
and hears the sand shriek in dismay!

O! Our time calls out for more than this from us;
it begs a reflection upon tenderness
with hunger's pleading gaze.

We must enter into a season of grand marvels,
like a child upon seeing his mother’s smile;
a world free of brutality and madness and war.

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

Thanks to C&L for the inspiration