KOREAEBOOKDOCUMENT1.2.0One Hundred+ Poets Against the WarTodd Swift, Editor#A>para.xml110poets.jpgnormal.sty{ para.xml smaller.sty small.sty normal.sty large.sty larger.sty;110poets.jpg   One Hundred+ Poets Against the War Todd Swift, Editor     Table of Contents Editor's Introduction * Are There Children * Collateral Damage * Regime Change Begins At Home * Hot Milk * killer * At Home, At War * Ode to all concerned with that `baby milk' factory in Iraq * Notwithstanding * The Day After * Mickey Mouse came, Mickey Mouse saw, Mickey Mouse conquered * Hyperbole For A Large Number * Mark the Day * un-UN inspected * Why I Want To Be A Baconaut * The Field * Dancer * Other Demands * Georgie Porgie * the war is on the kitchen table * The Virtual Total Information Awareness Office * The Flying Flag * a short list of short lists * Dragonseeds * Water Dragon / * We Accept * Sirens * Treasured Ghost * pEACE iCON 21c * Moonblood * From After The Anti War March * Where There's War * The Man of Principle * War - the concise version * Harvest * Untitled * clash of civilisations? * All Those Home Spun Places * Peace Poem * Imminent * Brainstorm * Miranda Rights * Dubya Anabasis * Talking With The Cat About World Domination The Day George W. Bush Almost Choked On A Pretzel * Yellow Jackets * A Verse to War * Anna's Meal * Rhetoric for Peace * No Seasons, Only Weather * Leavening * Gulf War - Aftermath * A Dark Little Psalm Against War * Even * Still True? * This is the War That George Fought * the killing fields * Terror on Warism * A Light * An Untitled Place * Streetcars and Crosswalks * Bubble Girl Song * Priests' Skulls * Life after wartime * Unleashed * blood in the snow * untitled * Taking Sides * We Believe * Against the War * Nation * After the Anti-War March * Untitled * The Hawk Who Became A Dove * What You Call It * The Paloma's Lament * Broken fall whispers * on the night she didn't feel like it anymore * Haunted House, October 2002 * The Moments Silence * The Tooth * let us step around this time * Wedding War * The White-Throated Sparrow Can't Compare * What Did Adorno Say? * "Christendom" * Off The Record * God Decides to Press the Mute Button on his Remote Control * Sim Shalom * The 20th Century Man * A Poem for My Muslim Poet Friend * the sand that is everywhere * Good Morning Middle Age * On Election Day * Untitled * Divine Haiku for the New Patriotism * To a Veteran of the Last Wrong War * Easy * Circling The Gulf A Gain A Loss, Ingrained * Women in Black * from How It's Been * war is gud 4 bizness in th 19th centur * Psychotic Sea * Women Washing Clothes in the Kabul River * Bigger Than Time * transit * The Land of Hope * excerpts from little dead things * Press conference * Filofax * Nets At Gennesaret * King Rat * In The Abundance Of Oxygen The Refugee Is Choked * Ballad * The Palace of Art * My peculiar talents * I Dream of War * Candle, Flame, Stained Glass and Prayer for Peace * News Theatre * Letter to Hayden Carruth * Unrhymed Peace Sonnet * Crossing Kurdistan * This Sky of Lost Miles * Dear Lady, Fear No Poetry * January meadow, * From Peace Walk & Rally, San Francisco * Can We Have Some Peace and Quiet Please? * To Miklós Radnóti * For The Birds * N.O.T.R.O.T.C. * No War Then * My Collaboration with George Bush * Waiting for the Marines * Rania * The Servant * The Border *       Editor's Introduction Never before has a book travelled the globe so quickly. Or so it seemed the week of January 27, 2003. 100 Poets Against The War was launched at www.nthposition.com to coincide with Hans Blix's report to the UN. Within days, news had spread around the world, via print media, Internet, radio and TV. More importantly hundreds of web-sites hosted the PDF, tens of thousands of people emailed and downloaded the "instant anthology" and many more printed it up and made copies. Our DIY chapbook has become part of various peace demonstrations, readings and rallies world-wide, from Oxford to Seattle. And all this week, hundreds of new poems, from Gambia to China, kept arriving by email. This proves that electronic books still have a future - so long as their content reaches an interested global community. Clearly, a nerve was touched. The interest in 100 Poets Against The War has been in proportion to how unpopular the planned attack on the nation of Iraq is. As the Copper Canyon initiative - and the week's surge of interest in poetic protest - lead to the First Lady cancelling her White House poetry event because "poetry and politics" shouldn't mix, the rest of us realised an important cultural point had been made. Walt and Langston and Emily can't be silenced by any politician - poems rise above the moment, and echo across history with power to speak to all people working to stop injustice and oppression. Poetry does make things happen: in people's lives, in the way they see the world and act in it. One week later, on Monday, there was 100 Poets Against The War Redux . If our first version made history by being the fastest anthology ever, then maybe this was the quickest second edition. But it is more than that. Due to the many exceptional poems that arrived this week, we added more than 20 new ones and corrected some typos. Thanks to Ms. Benoit, President of the Canadian eAuthors Association, the version you have has been designed for access in new ways. 100 + Poets Against The War features nearly all the poems from both previous versions and is a welcome addition to this project, which aims to generate peace through protest and poetry. Once again, let me thank all the poets who have generously donated their work to our project - it is brave and good of them. While we are not able to feature all of the nearly thousand poems we have received since January 20, 2003, every poem has been appreciated and read, and contributes in its way. While the poets whose work is here retain copyright, they have agreed to let you freely share their words. I also wish to thank Val Stevenson, publisher of www.nthposition.com in the UK, where all versions originated and can still be found; her vision and hard work have been indispensable. Val and I hope that you, poet, reader, activist for peace, will email and snail mail this book of poems to friends, family, colleagues, media and leading hawkish politicians everywhere. We want to keep the momentum for peaceful poetic protest going, until we are able to say we stopped this war before it started.   Peace. Todd Swift Editor 100 Poets Against The War 100 Poets Against The War Redux 100 + Poets Against The War Paris, February 4, 2003   Are There Children Robert Priest are there children somewhere waiting for wounds eager for the hiss of napalm in their flesh - the mutilating thump of shrapnel do they long for amputation and disfigurement incinerate themselves in ovens eagerly are there some who try to sense the focal points of bullets or who sprawl on bomb grids hopefully do they still line up in queues for noble deaths i must ask: are soul and flesh uneasy fusions longing for the cut - the bloody leap to ether are all our words a shibboleth for silence - a static crackle to ignite the blood and detonate the self-corroding heart does each man in his own way plot a pogrom for the species or are we all, always misled to war from Blue Pyramids: New and Selected Poems (ECW Press, 2002)   Collateral Damage Jackie Sheeler In a place of sand and wind and want, worn cotton looped across her forbidden face a woman without pleasures tends to her sons. She believes what she is told, owns no flags knows life by the taste of cloth at her mouth. Bread and leaflets drop from the sky, then other things. We meant to bomb the airport one mile north of this village with no name, this village on no map, this village of no more.   Regime Change Begins At Home Sue Littleton "Like fish in a barrel, man, it was like shooting fish in a barrel!" The barrel has no water in it; the fish lie stacked on their sides like silver playing cards, gills gasping frantically, mouths opening and closing in silent screams. The pupils of their round lidless eyes reflect flashes of light as their bodies jump and twitch beneath the hail of bullets, their flesh splitting to release pale blood. The barrel holds no water ... but somewhere in its depths there is the dark, iridescent sheen of oil.   Hot Milk Patrick Chapman Your father would hardly speak to me. One afternoon, he brought home cans Of carrots, peas, Carnation, Spam. He reinforced the concrete walls With mattresses. Strontium in the milk , they'd said, but No cause for alarm . I might as well have suckled you ­ My babe-in-arms ­ On long-range missiles' noses As on the teats of bottles, warmed At four a.m. to quiet you.   killer Marcus Moore a woman's child is ill she will have to buy a pill she will have to pay the bill she will have to earn a shilling she will have to use her skill she will have to use a drill she sits behind a grill the poor woman makes weapons chilling a rich man owns the mill he has an iron will he sits behind the till he likes to watch the coffers filling selling arms gives him a thrill so while on some distant hill a poor woman's blood doth spill the rich man makes a killing   At Home, At War Tony-Lewis Jones Now there is silence in the house, except The pipes tap-tapping under floorboards and The clocks' slow rhythmic messages. You are Late coming home for an argument: The night holds terrors every parent knows. Your mother is away. She, I'm certain, Would have played this same weak hand Quite differently. The morning paper Demonstrates with images how words Can lose all meaning: mouths that cannot speak Tell how desperately we need to understand. Wars begin when language fails us. The missiles Fall, undiverted by the right command. Bristol 20.1.03   Ode to all concerned with that `baby milk' factory in Iraq Helên Thomas Bombs go off and so does milk, And both events make you grumpy, But given the choice between the two, I'd rather have milk that's lumpy.   Notwithstanding Harriet Zinnes Notwithstanding and so forth But it is oil and the dark tunnels disappear and the ghosts of tanks the sand covering dead bodies The missiles, where are they stored? And imports of uranium and of aluminum tubes for making missiles and stores of VX nerve gas and United States spy planes? And weapons inspectors The United Nations Oh, they did not include a meeting with President Saddam Hussein Ah yes, stopping weapons proliferation Notwithstanding and so forth   The Day After Seán Street There's no time now, at least we won't notice anyway, seas can't be tidal any more, no time today. No seasons now, and lost the loving interplay of light and dark. No dusk or dawn, no night and day. No future now, all options, choices gone away. Time signatures? Impossible, no songs today. Just sadness now because Time heals, they used to say, and without Time of course our pain will always stay. Stars? No. None now turning, nothing dances today, no winds, there's nothing linear, today's the day all ends, this now is when, this stasis is the way. Transmitters fail, the clocks are still. Time stops today. Mickey Mouse came, Mickey Mouse saw, Mickey Mouse conquered Vincent Tinguely Looking for clean copies in a post apocalypse with skewed scan lines. Whenever I stand up straight my head smears across the screen; still, the soundtrack's good. If I lean at a forty-five degree angle, walk laterally across a grassy knoll, one hand keeping balance, the other against the ground, I almost seem to be what I am. George W. Groovy and his GWGs electric chair their way to the Oh So White House. God, I remember your father and his father before him and all the fathers before that. Brows knit in the media glare, a penchant for current affairs leaving songs like legal briefs littering the clear cut swath of history. The stupid shall inherit the system and everything else shall follow, like unto dominoes or fractal equations. Sail on oh mighty shit of state. It's the end of a thousand years of book-keeping and I'm doing my bit. A gunshot across the bow of the ship of progress. At least the Egyptians had aesthetics, Amerika has all the bad taste money can buy. Power rabid and destructive just out of view, the other side of calm pronouncements. They march in video formation in their desert camouflage, their helmets, those Aryan cutaways. There's nothing worse than a good idea whose time has come and gone. Religion, the car, capitalism, it's all turned into a freak show for the living dead. Actors all around me chasing the script, everybody should just fuck their time away, forget the oil and the geopolitical bullshit. A good, healthy obsession is all anyone really needs, take that shampoo hair and jazzy beer ad body out of the television and re-install it in reality.   Hyperbole For A Large Number Stephen Brockwell Not the hair that you or I have touched but the follicles all lovers hands have combed their fingers through, that number so much greater, say, than all the teeth from speechless mouths that now the fish and birds perceive as stream and garden pebbles. Not the breaths our mother exhaled since mud filled her father's lungs at Amiens but all the breaths of children put to rest since Iphigenia's sacrifice. Not the drops of blood that have fallen on all the battlefields of spring but the particles of mist the sun has scattered from them - enough to weigh your khakis down after a patrol, enough to resurrect your face from its evening mask of ash. Not the number of the stars that burn and burn out like eyes of but the number of the particles that give the stars their fire surely exceeds the number of our crimes.   Mark the Day John Asfour I will light a candle and read Justice books, only to find out that justice will be abused. Light a candle and talk about humanity, only to find out that humanity, in the time of crisis resorts to revenge. I will light a candle and talk to the children, ask them how they tolerate one another, how they abandon play once they disagree and later invite their playmates to the same game. I will light a candle and die for a day, only to see if death would teach us to choose peace over war. un-UN inspected Tony Hillier five hundred marched to Fairford stealth home of wealthy Yanks. Marchers came in peace for peace for Pete's sake. December grey skies threatened but seeing five hundred march to Fairford held back their inconvenient though life-giving rain. Even the cold war gave its respects to these peaceful, non-military marchers out of step with some legs in step with millions of caring minds worldwide to Fairford's barbed wire front door came placards, plays and protest came music, singing and love. Yellow Gloucester bobbies shielded from exposure khaki-violent yanks whose mass destruction weapons lay another day un UN inspected lay, until another day when five mill will march to Fairford with letters and es to MPs and quiet talk with neighbours Why I Want To Be A Baconaut Eileen Tabios Sometimes when I put something full of flavor in my mouth, I close my eyes and feel like I'm flying--drifting into eternity, above and beyond all the craziness of the world below, and I dream that all there is in the world is love, harmony and bacon. --Dan Philips, Owner of The Grateful Palate and "Future Baconaut" A painter lays down his brush to speak the unspeakable -- "The artist painting white flowers against snow while others march is as political as those who laid down brushes to wield placards." Today, I am a poet writing bad verse because a headline blares "Politics and Science Mix Badly." I read its significance as the inexplicable inability to understand BOMBS AND BULLETS KILL, KILL, KILL... I begin to search for "comfort food." I find a "Family-size" package of bacon. I fry and eat them all, welcoming the heat burning my inarticulate tongue. With the most avid mouth I eat and eat -- cramming the strips quicker and quicker into my ravaged, ravaging mouth. I eat them all, I eat them all, I eat them all... The Field George Murray The sky has been aged, is ancient enough now to have lost its teeth, clamping one smooth gum down on the other in a wry horizon's bite. That the violence we have witnessed was not random while the kindness was, how insulting to our attempts at existentialism! Can we not even frighten ourselves with philosophy anymore? That intent could replace randomness as our greatest fear speaks of how far we've come; from there to here, from right to just left of right, from fallen to the lower part of down. The corn that stretches into the distance, once an orderly army, has grown slack, wild, and hoary, each stalk standing at ease instead of attention, and in a place of its choosing, bearing those heavy yellow arms in a silence similar to hushed anticipation. Listen to the wind, the brewing rain, the field of fire, the flight of distant machinery, the coded plan of attack.   Dancer Hugh Hazelton we are watching the dancer spread her arms music body forward into space beyond the light robot armies push through gutted streets fire into straw villages empires of death's heads reflection in poisoned molten rain circuits connected set at command waiting the dancer arms clasped with her companion rolls herself slowly across his back slender shoulders linked through steel-plated insects bullets coming from their eyes there is no Official Violence lies in a conspiracy to kill the dancer slowly raising her head beautiful throat held curved taut against air   Other Demands Colin Morton Peace makes other demands: unfailing years of neverfailingness; the courage to reach into a wound and begin to heal; the bravery of a Barry Armstrong, the blue beret doctor who stood up in the Somali sun and told the truth to power. Retired from the military now, demobbed to the woebegone lakes of northern Ontario, he feuds with the hospital, which would cut corners, and the picture over his mantel at home shows it is conscience the forces drove out, paid off, retired and forgot: in the muted colours of a tent at night somewhere in the Kuwaiti desert the army doctor bends over his task of suturing the shrapnelled brain of an Iraqi soldier wounded at the start of the war and found on the battlefield at its end days later by advancing allied forces. Georgie Porgie Rochelle Ratner Georgie Porgie pudding and pie Kissed the girls and made them cry When the girls come out to play Georgie Porgie runs away. Except it isn't girls, exactly, But women in veils, Who without them might look As old as Mother. And it's not the Father Going after the bully But the Son setting out To avenge the Father. And the oil, of course. When even Tony Blair Turns against him, He pouts. Damn the UN, We offer them a home And this is the thanks we get. They're foreigners, all of them, Not part of this One Nation, Under God.   the war is on the kitchen table Myrna Garanis the war is on the kitchen table the war is on the kitchen table waiting to be read, I brew the coffee black as buildings, charred, collapsed, I load the toast with butter, chew my way through cluster bombs, smear raspberry jaw on screaming headlines which do not disappear I flip the page to guaranteed results: hockey scores, ice dance competitions, there the gains and losses line up in soldierly columns, no wavering parades of souls, filing down disfigured roads, walking, falling, left behind, long after the page is closed The Virtual Total Information Awareness Office Allen Cohen After Sting and Santa Claus The Virtual Total Information Awareness Office is watching you virtually wherever you are. It knows what you are buying. It knows where you are living. It knows where you are working. Every step you take every move you make the Total Information Awareness Office is watching you. It sees you on the street on the train and in the buses. It knows your diseases and measures every drug you take. It knows who your lover is and keeps track of your divorces. It wants to put a chip in your head and give you a number like 666. It counts debts and can collect. It can steal your identity and make you dead The admiral is keeping a data base and he's checking it twice in the total information awareness office. Every step you take every move you make the admiral will be watching you.   The Flying Flag Eric Paul Shaffer Call them mad, call them evil, they are men with ideas like the ones we celebrate on the proper occasions: God, freedom, forgiveness, justice. But none of us love one long. Witness now: we turn again, arms above our hearts, to pledge allegiance to vengeance. Eyes raised to blue, we look without learning the first lesson of the sky, stars, and stripes: The flying flag follows the wind. a short list of short lists devorah major miracles: silk worms pearls thousand year-old redwood trees lightening the sun rising every day the ocean and its tides human existence in a universe that is mostly ice rock and fire tragedies: starving children oil drowned gulls sonar beached whales rape murder uranium dust bullets and bombs that shatter peoples' walls, doorways, beds, heads, hearts, lives remedies: justice peace love Dragonseeds Jem Rolls On a white field stands out the red flower.bodiless names.baying voices of death.the sun catches the dying, exposing their grief and terror and destruction to the looking eyes of dawn...the heavens singed, tattered... bodies dashed on the random reefs of war.the dead and dying lead the living into death .to the boy who falls comes only the sound of other bullets making other death ...death the almighty rolls in remorseless from afar, visiting where it will with impunity, crushing the strongest defences, annihilating the strong the weak the proud the fearful the bold ... perfume of death...men planting rootcrops of death...flames climb high onto the sky... harvesting the dragonseeds of hatred sown by previous generations ... the skeletal arms of the last war's dead youth reaching up through the earth to bitterly strangle the finest hopes of this world turned to nidorous hell, this life turned to victorious death...horizons topple... house of god implodes... stuffing muddy insides back into wound ... the head an eggshell smashed, the brain spattered on the wall, the congealing blood dripping down the dirt . cry bursts out, shearing through the long night with unspeakable terror ... but who shall return them their sons? ... burst bodies ... smiling corpses ... death by lead death by steel death by fire...the life through flutter dyings struggles going going struggling goes...the steam of sweat rising from the already dead into the wintry morning still ...the dead and dying leading the living into death... hours tautened, elongate with fear...daily words with avuncular death sat grinning on the sandbag wall... choking the very lungs and life from a body now cored by death...a world always to be, now ending...but who shall return them their children?... life despoiled crying out up to the emptiness ...have you forgotten yet? look down and swear by the slain of war that you'll never forget...gone howling and screaming, bitter and tormented, into the void of death...a child weeps now for the death he shall die in ten twenty thirty years time as besuited men stride proud and pleased from peace conference hall...river of death overflows... innocence kills innocence fear kills fear youth kills youth strength kills strength father kills father ...no red roses no glows from the hearth no sunday worship no nurtured pie no grimy-faced children ... a sorrow as far as the mind can stretch...a world always to be, now ending.     Water Dragon / Jason Camlot Twelve years ago my love left me for the war. He was no soldier but he swore he must go or else random accidents would destroy our home. Take care of our little one , he said, pointing to this terrarium and the strange sea creature that lived inside on a tiny island, shielded by these thin glass walls. Light from one flickering, yellow bulb was all the food the water dragon needed to survive. Likewise, my hope and comfort fed on the flickering of some remote war. I used to watch the dragon pace the strand, survey the water that I changed religiously, afraid that parasites were there. Once I even touched its skin and let its threadlike tongue draw gleams of tea from a spoon my lover left with me. I clutched my arms in my sleeping gown and watched the monster sleep beneath the little mango tree- fallen now, and petrified. What can it mean? I fear what it can mean. Last night before I went to sleep I thought I heard a whispering and rose to find the amber bulb had left a million glistening shards across the dragon, lying dead. We Accept Vicki Hudspith We accept that things have changed Walk past closed shops to the movies Little League fields hold equipment, debris trucks We accept that everyone Will wear photo ID necklaces Bags and briefcases will be searched, scanned, X-rayed We accept that though we walk through all of this We may still pass through metal detectors to enter a building We accept that we won't eat as well, sleep as sound Too many appointments will produce confusion, inertia We accept that we will check exits Crowds will make us nervous The subway will be a target of captured life Overflowing wastebaskets will be potential hiding places Sirens will make us jump Sudden, loud noises, will irritate, even enrage We've accepted mountains of information but so few facts We've accepted politicians who don't read their mail We have waited and waited for the other shoe to drop Accepted seeing ordinary people in air filter masks And that everything is fine, for now We've accepted so much Will we accept or even recognize When we've given up? Sirens Pat Jourdan They waited for you on the landing on winter nights, black figures ready with guns. on the way to the bathroom, the bedroom, they hunched in the shadows. at the peak of my terror and bravery they disappeared, until next time. (Torches or candles made it worse, menacing shapes against the walls.) They could appear at any time - always be ready to run, leave the plate or the bed. I don't know where we went or what we did. Pyjamas, coats, cold, running; crowded shapes, hushed voices, adults in adult talk. A mattress under the stairs - why? and her making tea at the corner of the iron table, a slice of light showing exhaustion in the set of her shoulders, the radio sacrosanct, the only guardian we had.   Treasured Ghost T. Anders Carson Fields of turmoil sown with pain. Festering wounds hold power. Free the foothold of insanity, as the sacred bush of Golgotha is charred by military observers. pEACE iCON 21c rYAN kAMSTRA The red g-tar is larger than hysteria. Anyone who plays the red g-tar is stealthier than atom bombs. Anyone who sings can have my phone number. Anyone who looks to the blue sky not expecting a sleek all terrain coffin knows that clouds are the river's soldiers. To kill them is poison. Anyone who helped build those buildings keeps them standing long after death. In desert clubs, playing a red g-tar. This is the valley of death. A mass grave inhaled at red lips with a hint of gloss. Or you with us or against us?   Moonblood Sharlie West my wooden pail is split from carrying: mother's at home with brother where have all the people gone? faces of towers in the distance haggard against the landscape pebbles stones cutting rocks of mite dirt mounds and glistening red objects night-circling buzzards the heat is all around people wind across the desert in bands of yellow the colors of coughing and spitting - onions mixed with salt a fog of sulphur sends our heads reeling into dawn likening the empty streets to a doom of lessons a house with gashed shingles and gutted windows an old woman staring out From After The Anti War March Neeli Cherkovski ...The news had been one-sided as usual quick to point out most of the people are for destroying whatever remains of Ur of the Chaldees and the ziggurats of life we are doomed, the National Security Advisor said as much, we either bomb them first or they'll bomb us eventually, we either step into the abyss or get pushed into it The Security Advisor is a nice looking woman, she speaks in clear, even tones unlike her boss who has a mean expression whenever he invokes the name of our patriotic god ... We're victimized by one conspiratorial voice demanding silence, we don't even have to listen, we are asked to surrender our bodies our minds, our children On the way home it's the Secretary of Defense defining our desire, telling us who and what we are, the radio screams and I manage to listen At home the President tells us he is running out of patience like a storm offshore, he is ready able and willing to make his move It's the day after the march, I should have been there, but here I am now walking through my words to where we must reclaim the land and its language Where There's War Ken Waldman Where there's war, there's an anti-war of writers writing, readers reading, veterans recalling what they served for -- to make the world more open for children, to share understanding. Where there's war, there's an anti-war, and in between a heavy warped door old, creaky, and infuriating. Seething veterans, recalling what they served for, can't find sense in making only the poor pay for the needs of the rich -- and suffer dying. Where there's war, there's an anti-war of you and I walking into the music shop, the food store, greeting friends, finding peace in being. We're veterans who recall what we serve for-- not god, not country, but the chore after chore that is the daily chore of living. Where there's war, there's an anti-war-- writers, readers, veterans recalling what we serve for.   The Man of Principle Mr. Social Control I absolutely refuse to go on this insane and murderous suicide bombing mission to Oxford Circus unless we first have the full agreement of the United Nations Security Council. War - the concise version Rachel Bentham contention between people this is how we begin specific conflicts armed hostilities   the "art of war" - it's certainly not a science, but doesn't art create? strategy and tactics been in the wars? war baby war bride war crime that which violates international laws of war as if laws are effective in wartime war cry war of attrition war of nerves war grave war weary, just reading the words.   Harvest Barbara Berman For Amos Oz and David Grossman There are no enemies insist your rugged hands and muscled backs half hidden in olive branches shading women darkly veiled. There are no enemies but the enemy of a piece of fruit, its oil, its balm for the rest of us who need to be so brave. Untitled Tom Bell Dearest Angel, I have a story to tell you, today. They just told me that pill popping pilots are protecting you from terrorists. We've watched television together, you and I. I know you didn't understand all you saw, but also felt your fear of the pill poppers. I don't want to hand your care over to the world out there. It's not all hippos hoppin'. It's not all mamas shopping at the mall and grampapas bopping. Be strong, dearest. Love, Grampa clash of civilisations? Ilija Trojanow (on the bombay suburban) swallow your pride an elbow in point choke on the last morsel of comfort there is no doubt we all are one shedding our skins to reach the exit pick up the odour like a callus a cold strain with the flow catching a whiff of border when the jostling starts grab the waist of the nearest prayer stumble to shanti to amin body-reading your way onto the platform protected by union from another other. All Those Home Spun Places David Plumb The old man's fist thumps the dais again. Flags wave. Slick cars stream cool. The price of gas runs down, runs up. Cell phones ring. Oil Oil Oil screams the endless whopper click click game show of them all. Bombs bomb bomb pipelines run who knows where the stink started? What do we dance on this moonless night of cut off thumbs and business as usual? Peace Poem Charles Potts "The young men and women standing against the war have made a green place in my heart," sang Robert Duncan protesting the Vietnam War in a former time but in the same place. The earth doesn't need us; we need the earth. Let us try to act as holy as we'd like to think we are. War is the attempt to control the economic future by force. There are better ways to be secure than by making paranoia public policy. Intellect and moral integrity are under assault and must survive. Where the powerful sleep in fits and starts with their troubled dreams of death, the death of their system with its interlocking privileges, no amount of security devices can ever make safe. They want a stage to pose upon from the depths of their gated communities where they can throw fear into the hearts of others to eclipse the fear in their own. We are safe in love with truth willing to march, live and die by and for it. Peace is the way you live your life. Imminent Fred Marchant even the heavy machinery seems tentative, as if the engines would like to quit, as if the road itself was glass, as if iron or ice or anything solid we touch wants only to fall apart, give way in relief the jets cut across the morning nothing seems to stop them, says the pessimist but sometimes I think the cold deepens forever and more, and like us even the bombers will be grounded and all good pilots will want to stay inside go nowhere all day, speak with no one they do not love 1/23/03 Brainstorm Bruce A. Jacobs We've got to Um, Protect families children Weapons mass destruction Yeah, that's it, A war fought from An SUV. Stomp Saddam In time for soccer practice. Trust me, they'll buy it. Uh-oh: North Korea. Shit. Okay: Um, It's different. Help me here, Colin. Possession isn't everything. No proof he'll use them. Huh? Contradiction? Well, Shit. You tell me How to duck a fucking A-bomb. Okay. Okay. Think Story. It's all in the Telling: Mustard gas becomes Weapons Mass Destruction. New Hiroshima becomes Matter of Discussion. See? We'll rev up an SUV, Splat Saddam, give Kim the finger And peel out. He'll never dare. Damn! That's it. That's definitely It. Miranda Rights Marcos Flores You have the right to remain silent. Silent about the injustice that exists, about underground modes and methods of survival. About love and compassion and peace and giving and sharing. And all that this earthly experience gives, what life's cycles bring and more. You have the right to remain silent. And be arrested for the homeless, for the sick, for the lame, and the poor, for those faceless, nameless, invisible human beings suffering, right outside your nation's living room door. You have the right to remain silent. And go home to your family while political tyrants plot paths to war. You have the right to remain silent. And live your life.living and looking through glass. In a pseudo democracy, forgetting the past, forgetting to pay homage to all those things that truly make men, women and children free. You have the right to remain silent. And not ask questions, when you already know in your heart the answers. You have the right to remain silent. Because action is needed.words have no meaning.time is fleeting. The world and its peace.our community.they're calling for more, not war. January 2003   Dubya Anabasis Richard Peabody   Dubya Anabasis. Original name, George W[alker] Bush. (1946-?) 43rd President of the United States (2000-?) and the man who started World War III. It's difficult to understand how Dubya became president. His Republican Party (GOP) was famous for rewriting history in the style of evil dictators Stalin and Hitler before them. What we know now, post World War III, is that he was installed into power after a disputed election in which he lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote. A petty criminal, it appears he was a pawn of the corporations who expected to get rich on military excursions into Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea in order to corner the market on the world's oil reserves at a time when natural resources were dwindling. The son of the 41st President (George Herbert Walker Bush) Dubya is thought now to have been a puppet of his father and his father's staff. He disappeared in the fallout following the vaporization of Washington, D.C. For years it was claimed that he died in a bunker in West Virginia, or was hiding in caves in Texas or Argentina. (See Dick Cheney, Chomsky, Gulf War, Heroin Smuggling in Southeast Asia, Iran-Contra, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Zinn). Dubya appears briefly as a Taniwha in Keri Waratah's rock opera Whiro, he is presented as a bland and puritanical man of relentless torpor, the "child is father to the man" who gradually mutates into a mythical demon, as contrasted to the heroic characters like Good Soldier Schweik, or Xing Zi famous for his magical feather cloak. Dubya is to this day a curse word passed down by generations of Maori people. (See also: fuck, merde, scheisskopf, walker, wang ba dan, et al.)     Talking With The Cat About World Domination The Day George W. Bush Almost Choked On A Pretzel Kevin Higgins Now that pretzel's gone and done something an expert like you never would - loosening its hold a split-second too soon - I think it's time we revised our strategy. Just sitting back waiting for the big collapse? Face facts. It isn't happening. If there's a job to be done, why not us? This time tomorrow we'll be in Washington telling Bush to come out with his hands up. Faced with me and you, Puss, I bet he'll just crumble. And we'll whisk him off to Guantanamo Bay where he'll share a cage with the Emir of Kuwait. I see from the frown wrinkling your brow, you're worried, perhaps, how Mariah Carey fans everywhere might react. Too late for all that. To put it in terms I think you'll understand: after the years wasted here in this litter-tray, it's time to deliver for me and you, Puss. Our battle-cry? Something snappy? Like? Yes, I have it! Repeat after me: Don't make me angry, Mr Magee. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. Yellow Jackets John Rybicki I inhale this yellow bell, too late to warm the car engine to the emergency room. I kicked the dirt from a woodchuck hole, and thought, that soft tear of the arrow through the cardboard deer in my yard: woosh it went through the lungs, that wind hole just like love. Watch with me as the dead leave their bodies lunging like Astaire up no staircase at all. I'm searching for the arrow when those yellow jackets swirl up from the scrub grass to twang their stingers into my vocal chords, which need cutting, of course. All over my eyelashes, in my ear lobes and hair, these little people with their harpoons. See your cartoon Johnny pantomime a man on fire, into my house and flailing my shirt about, my love up from her own nest of a nap, woken by Jesus Christ, I'm a tall building, and , they're all over me. Shocked awake the way soldiers spring to when bullets rip through their tents. She's swatting yellow jackets off my blue jeans and stomping embers on the carpet. I have gasoline. I'll pour it down their hole tonight and light the match. Late night another tickle along my throat I swat down on my knees now with my Buddha, my boo-dawg beside me sniffing the carpet to find that yellow spasm on its back. I swat swat swat at it with my tennis shoe. My hound awes over my power, God knows he might be next. D on't be scared booger , I say and we lower our noses together to sniff the little carcass. At least with the crusades all we had were swords to butcher each other. Let's see what we have learned: abcdefg. here we go again. A Verse to War J. R. Carpenter I am afraid (of what will happen of the rhetoric of the silence of not knowing). I am afraid I don't know what to contribute. I am afraid (of destruction of waiting of doing nothing of adding fuel to the flames). I am afraid I don't have any answers. I am afraid (of trivializing of propagandizing of margins of error). I am afraid it is but a meager thing to add a verse adverse to war. Anna's Meal Nuala Ní Chonchúir If it had not been for the fighting in Dagestan the two of us might never have met: the tinned meat of the Semikarakorsk processing plant and my digestive system. I was invited to share a meal with the troops in a border cellar, two flights down, and if the darkness wasn't enough to scare, the slovenly guardian of the kitchen was. She disembowelled rows of unmarked tins, slicing the aluminium as easy as silk, "Tin 23, rotten. Tin 39, the same. Tin 42, for you. Try a sample of our daily fare, and tell Moscow how we feast," and she plunged the blade through each tin, so I sniffed and licked - what else could I do?- then spewed my bile all over her floor. The soldiers earn twenty-two roubles a day, for no medicine, no fuel, no faith; and for hours of ducking bullets their bellies are rewarded with putrid meat from the government's stores. If it had not been for the fighting in Dagestan the two of us might never have met: the tinned meat of the Semikarakorsk processing plant and my digestive system.   Rhetoric for Peace Susan Hankla Let us examine the loneliness of war, how when something is ripped it can never be restored. How we make ourselves bigger than God and then, that done, carry all we love in frayed coat pockets - sometimes whole villages end lining coats. Why do it? Why rip, then think things will be better? Why strip earth, never to build it up again? Why say goodbye, wipe out memory, civilization? We're more same than not - DNA isn't reserved for Capitalists. Why can't we stop and live again? Why do we cling to death? Why hasten the leaving of birds and miracles? No Seasons, Only Weather Meghan Nuttall Sayres You say about life in Kabul that you remember a childhood of orchards and roses. I see you in sepia tones, Ramazan, in this newspaper photograph: white turban, beard and robes. Are you proof that it is possible to carry on when your children have been blown up by a single bomb? Javaid 7 Zamoor 6 Hidayat 4 Mushabana 1. Your eyes asking will Allah hold them; restore peace "like it was," wish the pomegranate trees into bloom? Leavening Kate Newman Walk beside us hear our time. Know that a perfect purchase is heaven here as leavening bread on Clark Street, likewise the pane gathering light on the east line down. If I catch a spark of knowledge on Tuesday, maybe Wednesday ever after I will give thanks. Lie as I have not lain sit without disdain. Crows shelter at the smack centre of the four way on Main while somewhere a lark sings what will not be heard. Gulf War - Aftermath Mary Trafford " Depleted uranium is the super weapon of the `90s: [it was] used in the Gulf War and conflict in Kosovo." One decade down this hazardous way wrings a freak show out of Iraq, where silver bullets of depleted uranium linger in dust and debris, detritus of war, infect the babies; split atoms / split genes, and a toddler stares at life's cruel turn through a single eye - all that nature can bestow of beauty; twisted hairpin turns of chromosomes, unlike anything scientists have ever seen, while young mothers bleed out fetal remains: unrecognizable might-have-beens the teratology of war. A Dark Little Psalm Against War John B. Lee "poem written after seeing a documentary on the rise and fall of Hitler" lost between fear and the fairgrounds to the cult of fire and the idolatry of death these skull-browed men in red and black bowing to accept bouquets from bare-legged little flower girls blowing almost away in thin summer dresses or patting the forehead fidelity of dogs their own fuhrer in final scorched repose his uniform coat his pair of pajamas a burned body in a bomb crater in April in Berlin bearing the tight-boned grin of eternity with sixty-million souls for company, remembering those sentimental interludes that poisonously sweet tea-cake ambrosia tasting of the smoke of burning flesh and the ash-drift confection like a Christmas evening snowfall oh, the wrong gods are in the mountains above the overcast or riding a red river of crushed roses when weeping and harp-willowed is the world it dashes our children on stones.   Even Nathalie Handal Nothing is even, even this line I am writing, even this line I am waiting in, waiting for permission to enter the country, the house, the room. Nothing is even, even now that laws have been drawn and peace is discussed on high tables, and even if all was said to be even I would not believe for even I know that nothing is even - not the trees, the flowers, not the mountains or the shadows. our nature is not even so why even try to get even instead let us find an even better place and call it even. Still True? Clive Matson Yesterday I dreamt the sky turned orange and white, spawning giant mushrooms. I jumped into a ditch. Held my head in my hands for a few seconds until everything went. Today the western hills are hazy green and brown. I have things to do. People wander in and out of shops. Sun shines on the shimmering road as if nothing happened.   This is the War That George Fought E. Russell Smith This is the land where the war was fought that George fought. This is the oil that comes from the land where the war was fought that George fought. This is the tractor that runs on the oil that comes from the land where the war was fought that George fought. This is the farmer who drives the tractor that runs on the oil that comes from the land where the war was fought that George fought. This is the son who lies in the sand and this is the oil that burns on the land. This the war that George fought. the killing fields Di Brandt but don't we all dear Em doesn't everyone have cut off hands gripping knives in their too big heads aren't we all blood crazy thirsty in our midnight selves to avenge the curdled mother's milk rotted on our parched cracked tongues convinced the death of the little princes & princesses in the baby tower & the enemy their king will release us from her untimely abandonment like the Pharoah like Herod like Hitler like Bush is this a dagger divine Will Shakespear said giving the words to regal Lady MacBeth I see before me handle toward my hand come let me clutch thee we must be able he taught us to imagine at least this much darkness in us & then & then Em then to wrestle down the spirits who would delude us into attacking the living breathing world turning to face the hot fanged wolves that haunt us who if we're brave enough would rather play & full leafed trees dancing toward us & the frozen child huddled asleep deep in her forest bed shivering in slow thaw as we remember ourselves her father her mother & the enemy our sister brother Terror on Warism Ian Ayres   Bloody warmongering perpetuates the endless cycle of bullets >>>>>> of weapons >>>>>> of mass destruction * Unthinking obedience is the point at which democracy breaks down: DE C A Y m o c r We must speak out when we feel our / government / is / wrong. We have that right. In a time of terror, PROTEST IS PATRIOTISM Our flag isn't some bloody rag to be waved by politicians. The red, white & blue is for Arab Americans, too. S T O P T H E W A R ! S T O P A N N I H I L A T I O N ! Bombing people only fuels anger, resentment, & desire for revenge. & let me tell you, there's nothing casual about casualties. Such rhetoric that deafens us to slaughter blinds us to our quickly approaching end. For we have already entered A PERIOD OF MASS EXTINCTION not seen since the age of the dinosaurs. Or in other words, I mean Albert Einstein's: `I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.' A Light Anita Govan   they that know the truth of it   with such brilliant color in bright eyed remembrance its breath upon the fire   a light that feeds the very birth of it shattering into the quiet chaos like some bright bell in still silence   a moment to change the world     An Untitled Place Suzy Morgan this used to be a city, town, local wherever maybe over there, maybe here. a splintered dreg of wood is the only object, passed over by the usual chaos and trivial frivolities, terrors - of war - and it stands this post. and the shell-spangled sky leans down upon it with such weariness. Streetcars and Crosswalks Anita Santarossa In the battlefield of crosswalks I join the dancing band, circling the courtyard Tapping my finger on the edge of the trigger I wait. Silently. And over the hill, just slightly over the hill I crawl. The conflict boils and blasts Along the horizon, Is a streetcar named Genocide. She uncovers her breasts exposing A tatoo of a butterfly Always changing. Now it's time to take cover Hiding from the masochists, capitalists. Trying to take the next cab As it pulls over, I run toward it My mother shouts out, "Don't Go!" The slow motion film tries to speed up But it was all over too fast As I sit here wishing to re-wind it all. Bubble Girl Song Wednesday Kennedy I shop with my white girl immunity and i'm safe till i get on that plane I want to stuff myself stupid and go back to sleep branded right down from my head to my feet yeah it's fat and obscene my american dream but you're only jealous cause you want the same tell me... Who's gonna die for my SUV come on.... Who's gonna die for my SUV And i'm thinking i might get a facelift because that might make the world seem more fresh because it's not been the same since the day the world changed and the war cry keeps beating it's tired old refrain I mean how can i shop in this negative frame. who knows what'll be the fashion next week? Tell me who's gonna die for my SUV come on who's gonna die for my SUV And it's just not the same as it used to be the mcmuffins just aren't quite as sweet and the tips have dried up and the times nearly up on the joker who's taking the heat And i want another mcsunrise and i want another mcsweet a mcfuck, a mcstock, a car built like a truck a gas guzzling rip roaring empire's last wank come on... Who's gonna die for my SUV tell me.. Who's gonna die for my SUV Priests' Skulls Michael R. Brown "Hell is paved with priests' skulls"* laid gently in place by nun's hands, and soldiers' boots have worn them flat. The archbishop of Madrid blesses fascist cannons. The cardinal of Berlin admires newly acquired art and chats with Hitler about ethnic purity laws. What the Pope can't see can't be pointed to. First the Jews and gypsies go. When the war goes badly, Nazis disappear, and no one can say where anyone went. Trains run to Auschwitz and to Switzerland. Mass deaths draw crowds out of Serb towns; rosaries dangle from bloody hands. Scapulars and blessed medals ring their necks like strings of garlic. Ministers foam at the mouth with oaths against strongest enemies, weakest friends. Add another bead to the charm bracelet: Carthage, Jerusalem, Carcassone, Mostar. A Rwandan nun sprays huts with holy water, screams at the devil in arms wielding Hutu machetes, justifies God's destruction in hands firing Tutsi guns, with never enough salt to sow bloody ground. Priests in eternal fire give each other absolution. Burning nuns lay hot bones in mocking patterns-- swastikas, stars of David, fasces, crosses-- crushed into paving by military boots. After the final judgment day archeologist angels spend another eternity excavating layers of bone floors in hell. *John Chrysostum Life after wartime Tom Phillips Some things never change. The garden bushes wag their beards like arguing theologians while the orange fists of passion fruit take cover in the leaves. The sky aches with unmapped distances and the sun hides nothing. At dusk, it surrenders to the moon. When there's small-hours muttering in the street remember it's only someone deciding to go home or go on, pushing through the night for the last of the great good times and into a shell-shocked morning-after. At least there's coffee again. It takes our minds off the radio, the smooth-voiced reassurances, the metaphors encrusted like barnacles on every announcement - your almost imperceptible jump at the sound of a pamphlet shoved through the door. Somewhere further resolutions are signed. Things never change. People wear their silence like a cawl. To bring them luck against drowning. They were parents. Or siblings. Or both. They are the ones that nothing surprises, the ones who no longer look up when a jet comes roaring in above the city, framed against the orange sky, seemingly picking its way among the towers. Unleashed Kate Evans Wild legs flying, my dog barks into the waves full force. Planting her feet, she pushes her body down, haunches up, and flies off. Tangled white fur, her legs lock and spin and her alien blue eyes whirl. Sand whips thick and wet. After the flash he put his hand to his face. It slid down with his skin, a Hiroshima survivor said on TV. There are too many ghosts, he said. Terrorist warnings, countries and people stretch rubber band taut, nuclear edge. And the President promotes pre-emptive strikes. Full force. Dogs of war, wave after wave. My salt-matted dog spins, red gums flashing, suspended tongue quivering. Ignoring my calls, she flies to the gray waves, an angry wraith. I touch my sea-cool face and wonder why wildness takes us. blood in the snow Conyus storm clouds full of war & sufferingthreaten from the mountain.winter snow buries old men near the borderin Afghanistan, while young children in Detroitprotest the killing fields in Iraq, Israel, & Oakland,with boycotts of Disneyland and McDonalds.january half over and the ground is wetwith blood in the snow.the war, just over the next mountain,and threatening summer; a long way off.somewhere, between the white rock and blue sky,gray bones lie drying in the sand.the day is like a soldier,creeping slowly to a freshly dug grave,and mourning flowers on a hillside,somewhere near the far horizon& red desert morning. San Francisco, California   untitled Kathleen Spivack although she moves in a personal winter -- a red scarf against a black chair -- that red gash widens like the outcry of a widow: a woman keens the world kills. from The Jane Poems ( Doubleday & Co. N.Y., 1974 ) Taking Sides Aoife Mannix There will be another war, many people will be killed, and I will be expected to have an opinion. But what can you say about a man who'd rather let thousands of children die then give them access to medical vaccines he claims could be used in bombs. Or for that matter a man who when the supplies finally arrive, locks them up in a warehouse, preferring to let his own people starve then weaken their hatred of the enemy. Talk about a rock and a hard place. The fundamental difference is questionable. Neither Jesus nor Mohammed would have allowed themselves to be pushed into this kind of choice. We Believe Kasandra Larsen " [U.S. administration officials] acknowledged that the case must be made in a negative fashion: Iraq has failed to disprove the contentions of the U.S. [...] about its weapons of mass destruction. The administration asserts, without offering evidence, that Iraq has thwarted inspectors by hiding the weapons ." - from The New York Times, 23 January 2003 WE BELIEVE in Democracy. But without evidence, we will still proclaim you Guilty. We enjoy playing global Judge and Jury. We will stridently enforce Accountability as we avoid our own disclosures or Transparency. We fully support the concept of Liberty (with exceptions for those with whom we Disagree). We prefer to call it War and not Brutality. We strive to promote human Dignity but call you Evil, Liar, warn of your Duplicity. We have smart bombs but will risk civilian Casualties. We joined the U.N. but like acting Unilaterally. Let us avoid discussing our Economy, ensure oil for our mighty S.U.V.s. How dare anyone question our Authority, our blatantly impatient, greedy Policies? One nation under our own Divinity, we hold that might makes right and not Diplomacy. Prepared to march, we will ignore all calls for Peace. You would not bend. We gave you time. Now you will bleed. We are America. We believe in Democracy. Against the War Susan McMaster Against the war I'll refuse to be insulted today. Against the war I'll smile at my boss till he smiles back. Against the war I'll recite this poem on Wellington Street, drive my car not at all, gossip about love, play Für Elise badly. Against the war I'll take a break from doing bills to watch the squirrels play on the wires outside my room, sign up for Italian, listen closely to a child, joke about the cold with the newly arrived Ph.D. who sweeps my office floor. Against the war I'll laugh at Bush's foot-in-mouth, make love in the afternoon, send clothes to St. Vincent de Paul, learn to spell Qur'an, phone up my daughter, light a birch fire and turn off the furnace, shovel the walk for the mailman, clean up after our old cat, leave the door unlocked. Against the war I'll act today, as I can, for peace. Ottawa, 24 January 2003 Nation Nora Gaines in this field, and upon its sowing, they ask for rain, they pray by the three saplings for dew in the gap of the espalier; tears, stationary, awake, but as the trouble-child; a loose stone wall restoring the wind, the trees themselves, the reed grass unloved, listing like a paper thief. may I put seed for more trees under this branch as if they were for their saplings' sake the reeds as if they were tears and the rain of one is close to the rain of the other.   After the Anti-War March Minnie Bruce Pratt We had a different driver on the way home. I sat on the seat behind her, folded, feet up like a baby, curled like a silent tongue in the dark jaw of the bus until she flung us through a sharp curve and I fell. Then we talked, looking straight ahead, the road like a blackboard, one chalk line down the middle. She said, nah, she didn't need a break, she was good to the end. Eighteen hours back to home when she was done, though. Fayetteville, North Carolina, a long ways from here. The math of a mileage marker glowed green. Was Niagara Falls near Buffalo? She'd like to take her little girl some day, too little now, won't remember. The driver speaks her daughter's name, and the syllables ring like bells. I say I lived in her town once, after another war. The boys we knew came home men cocked like guns, sometimes they went off and blew their own heads, sometimes a woman's face. Like last summer in Ft. Bragg, all those women dead. She says, "One was my best friend." Husband shot her front of the children, boy and girl, six and eight. She calls them every day, no matter where she is. They get very upset if she doesn't call. Her voice breaks, her hands correct the wheel, the bus pushes forward, erasing nothing. There was a blue peace banner from her town today, and we said stop the war, jobs instead, no more rich men's factories, refineries, futures built on our broke bodies. She said she couldn't go to the grave for a long time, but she had some things to get right between them so she stood there and spoke what was on her mind. Now she takes the children to the grave, the little boy he wants to go every week. She lightly touches and turns the big steering wheel. Her hands spin its huge circumference a few degrees here, then there. She whirls it all the way around when she needs to. Later I hear the crinkle of cellophane. She is eating some peppermint candies to stay awake. Untitled Jennifer LoveGrove We live on a fat red lifeboat, heaving and tossing on a geyser of melted gold siphoned from the veins of the dead. A pox of small explosions tears up the rubber beneath our feet. You can even see it from the moon, if you squint. Some of us fall over the sides, and do not even splash. The rest are overfed Cupids, charming enough with our little crossbows, but confused by all these lights and noises! Those of us who still have legs try to jump - as the fiery dots connect themselves, hungry as barrels. The Hawk Who Became A Dove Hal Sirowitz Most people start off supporting their country's war efforts, Father said, but as soon as someone close to them gets drafted, they suddenly change their tune & begin to question their government. Your friend's father was a hawk. When his son received a draft notice he became a dove. Instead of swooping down on anyone opposed to the war he started to do lots of cooing. He's easier to listen to now, because he isn't always ruffling someone's feathers. It's a shame that he needed the possibility of his son's death to improve his personality. What You Call It Tony Brown What d'you call it / that thing that came in the night / that hung above our village while a war fell onto us from its mouth what d'you call it / that thing I couldn't see it too well in the dark I think it had grey skin / know it had red eyes it wasn't a dragon it was too hungry to be a dragon / it was too angry a thing like that ought not to be free ought not to be let loose to do that / ought to be locked up ought to be somewhere else What d'you call that thing that roasts your children / cinders your wife takes your father in flame melts your tongue to the roof of your mouth and burns the consonants out of you until all you can do is scream open throated in only vowels with nothing to give shape or form to the sound what words could you have had before this to describe -- this what d'you call it? yes I suppose you could call it a helicopter a vertical takeoff and landing armored air support vehicle an Apache / a Cobra and I suppose its anger and hunger could be a mistake an unfortunate incident nothing to deter us from our mission but HELLMOTHER - BLADECLOUD - DARKRAPER- CHILDBURNER - SKYEATER STORMSWAN - DEVILROAR - DEATHBIRD - WIDOWERMAKER GODFLAMEHAMMER - all work just as well just do not call us "collateral damage" there are no clean words for some things The Paloma's Lament Rebecca Villarreal for Our President, January 23, 2003 Washington, DC 20009 (paloma = dove) i cannot name you son of sons for you only go by the bastard of your middle initial i can only ask you how many palomas white feathers curucucú must fall to win? it's minus sixteen degrees tonight the next zip code over i escape to the theater away from your headlines away from your ranch i only ask you why a man of means stayed so close to home before moving to my neighborhood Were you afraid of sand and outdoor markets? Or was it the trill of another tongue? now you embrace the last resort of the incompetent despite halting words from the civilized nodding, I see you embrace your wife confused and happy your daughters stay on dry land drinking to old papá and his trigger finger the weight of dead palomas rests on you, your middle initial and the lands you never visited Broken fall whispers Adam Pettet Broken fall whispers on windows and eyelids the kisses of granite laughter crushing saffron under boots of burnished steel. Marching in the graveyard the sullen turns away another dream citizen behind a breaking door. From side to side the blades turn a tail disappearing through the hail. Children kissing, the carnival, damp panties by the seaside. Blowing the gremlin in the breakdown lane she rises blood red lips streaked across her face. Red on red on a crumpled blue sea black sails in the wind bugs in my teeth war on my TV. on the night she didn't feel like it anymore danika dinsmore she stuffed herself to claustrophobic proportions belly ache a reminder she still had work to do she baked during moments of frustration listening for the difference between fireworks and gunshots she had been startled the week before by a strange man in the yard tonight she baked without looking out the window perhaps it was the New York Times story the Israeli tank blowing up two little boys on bicycles who didn't know the curfew was still in effect the whole one the one who maintained his limbs was buried with his chocolate bar in his hand perhaps it was Noah's impending flood God with crumbs in his beard or the appearance of an angel-afraid-of-dogs in the forest perhaps a lot of poets had died in the last few weeks and with them their hats or perhaps it was the rose on the bus lying on the dashboard in wet paper towels confiscated at the border a memento a kiss an apology what she really wanted was to stay up all night creating a path of words burning clay singeing the wick of mortal time what she remembered was this is not a dress rehearsal what did it matter the embarrassment of being human when we are all pedaling away from the same tanks with our chocolate bars and our misinterpreted dreams   Haunted House, October 2002 Sherry Chandler Nearly Hallowe'en and the high spooks tell us we should be afraid, our boy king fumes - we must exorcise the desert demon. The old cold warriors creak and shriek like ghosts of desert storms past. Meanwhile our school children bleed, our war vet sniper fades into a fog of pundits. The boys down in Lubbock, who believe in evil, kiss their virgin wives goodnight, pray the thunder god will give mojo to the boy. They put their faith in F16s. The tang of wax and rotted pumpkin fills the air. Is the smell of front-porch jacks stronger than the reek of burning oil, the copper smell of blood? The Moments Silence Peter Hunter In the moments silence, Hearts don't beat, They grow and shrink Worlds expand and break the air As other, bigger worlds contract Tiny holes appear from nowhere Having nowhere to react In the space between the flash and bang, The stroboscopic afternoon, The sudden drop from can to not, A cobweb softly snaps. Between the answer and the question One hand deafeningly claps As the tree becomes the seed Pausing just enough to take a life The tension slips The perfect pane becomes a pain machine And as the drop releases grip The mind lets go the dream In the moments startled argument The cell divides again Two voices stall in emptiness The first wave hits Between the tock and tick And understanding clicks. In the moments silence Death knocks at the door And roars and shits. The Tooth Robert Minhinnick (Amiriya, Baghdad) In your head I whisper: A tooth, blue as a cinder And I ask: Coward, Whose pain is it anyway? Your cells are a blizzard, Your mind a ragbook, yet I dream you into growth Luscious as papaya flesh Around my black seed. Why this need to condemn? I have felt your bones Gasp in their foundry, And at night you do not know But I have heard your blood Like a bench of silversmiths Pause at its work. Then continue. Once I dreamed You inside a laboratory When you stared at a kernel of phosphorus Until it sprouted fire; And thirty years later Ached in your skull As you stooped in the shelter Of Amiriya to pick the tooth Of a child like a rice grain From the ash. We've been together Such a long time now. And my roots Go all the way down. let us step around this time Lisa Pasold   take my arms, we might dance do you know how to tango? or maybe some kind of boogie-woogie, is there music there? can we listen. this is a story for which there is no witness, for I wasn't born or even thought of. I was only told about this war by my elder brother and then he died. in this story, the century is still new, my brother is tall and no one expects him yet to sicken and cough through my childhood, no one expects we will disappear. when I am not yet born, this story: uniforms, you see. the cloth needed by an army of new recruits. they were given freshly-made fatigues. let them go cleanly. some blessing, some clean shirt. there's a lot of cloth needed in wartime. a war is good for business when you're in textiles. after a while the shortages set in. this is the real beginning of most war stories. they began sending us old uniforms. I mean, taken from the dead. any denomination of man, when dead, his body's not worth the next soldier's cloth. you know how they died in that war, don't you? the shortest english word is mud. what they turned into. trucks piled with empty uniforms arrived at our factory. my brother's job, it was to cut off the buttons, medals, any clasps or zippers, anything that wasn't cloth then take what remained, fabric, to soak. vats full in the factory, break down the fibres, reweave it into new cloth for fresh lambs. my brother only wondering right at the end whether these uniforms were coming through repeatedly, unending, his hands going over the cloth, the buttons, the dead men. he would wash his hands. he was only thirteen and he had buttons from all over the world, he was proud of his metal collection. it included colours from every country. you understand what I mean. the dead came from everywhere.   Wedding War Buster Burk To my father: Those brutal spots decading old Seek to be red again, Failed, failing tongues of Quinyon Are we born each nude new generation? To be so forged to suit tradition's weigh? Does New Man facile limitation? Yet centuries tick the same old fate? We have broken sound with jetting ease We have mooned our dreams and touched Great Space We have mastered ford machine-light needs And turned it Auschwitzing a race We have changed and social custom's bearing Lets loose the cinched tight shaming ways And since customs difference times uncaring Can man divorce himself from man's beast frays? Because if not then hopes like newlyweds Fall from where we rose, old newlydeads The White-Throated Sparrow Can't Compare Eleanor Wilner He had made it through so many winters, an optimist in the blizzard's heart, staying on- so it seemed wrong, unfair (if such a word has any currency), that the gray expanse that used to mean the rain of spring should be the solid metal of a sky in motion overhead, and nowhere for a small and singing thing to fly, now that the bombers had come back, a phalanx overhead, a Roman legion given wings, and the land below grown dark-the way a shadow slips across the land when a cloud passes overhead. But there resemblance ends. As does ours with the sparrow, who, resting on a shaded branch, shakes his wings and gives the clear, reflective whistle for which his kind is known. And now the very thought of him has flown; the mind can't hold for long the sparrow and the bombers in a single thought. Mad to make them share a line, as if to balance power so unequal on the creaking fulcrum of the merest and : a pennyworth of weight with its live, pensive song against a roaring overhead-pure dread, its leaden tonnage, and its tongue. What Did Adorno Say? Jeffrey Mackie Do you think anything really matters In the extreme? Do you think (country) Should be capitalized? Is it any different Now that the war is over? And the bodies found And the bodies counted And the bodies Continue to be found Will continue to be found Do you think civilians Should be bombed from the air? Running again As they did from snipers in the hills It's all the same Bodies are collateral Is there a flag in the world Without the colour red? Without The colour of blood, Hidden somewhere? "Christendom" Graywyvern there was once a king a stupid king son of a king and he ruled a great empire greatest of his time and a pious king was he so pious he wanted to punish everyone that didn't believe and he made a department to spy on his own people this pious king but it was war he loved constant war war with no object he made war till he exhausted the wealth of this richest empire he ruined his country to utter bankruptcy and it became the most backward country in Europe and after this king whose name was Philip the Second a Golden Age of art & literature was snuffed out like it never existed and it was three hundred years three hundred years till Spain produced anything good again Off The Record Maureen Gallagher He tippexed the twin towers off the Guinness Book of Records , the World Trade Centre no longer holds the title; there's meat here for a class recording statistics; not so much anti as pedant: concrete examples are always best; not so much cynic as blind to the tragedy of so many lives lost in a massacre; blind to the backlash such terrorism unleashes on people around the globe; the gendarme-in-chief of the New World Order promises revenge: scapegoats will be found; the lesson learnt: the importance of history is not about the circumstances of an ordinary crowd, the towers of commerce are what count. God Decides to Press the Mute Button on his Remote Control David Siller Sometime during Eternity * the sounds of "Cowboys and Indians" outside a window, picket fences, sons and daughters playing a little game, giggles, `ready or not here I come' stomping and marching, hustling and hiding the roar of a fire hose, the shhhh of a shower the bells and bulls and bears of a stock market, flags in a breeze the sounds of cowboys and Indians outside a window, picket signs, sons and daughters pleading a little restraint, grumbling, `we're not ready here or there' glug glug glug of oil, boom boom boom of timber, click click click of clips the rumble of bulldozers, useless thud of rocks outside children whimper, `no food, no home help us find one' wolf calls to broads, whistles of bombs whispers of mass(s), whinings of missiles `Fire' burning woods `Fire' blasting weapons `Fire' in a crowded theatre, no one listens the sounds of "Cowboys" and "Indians" somewhere grandmothers making soup for kids hiding in bushes somewhere dicktators massing troops, hiding behind bushes somewhere people seeking truth, hidden just hidden everywhere windows are closed the only sound is the hum of the television then a snap to black the grinding halt of humanity to which no body listened * quote from Lawrence Ferlinghetti Sim Shalom Susan Freeman In a rush of air and wings, soaring up, they arrive, small, still statues in the open spaces of an old and rangy tree. Three, four, and finally, twelve mourning doves dark against the fogbound sky, one week beyond that indelible darkness, that fear, as the world begins again the slow circle of renewal we call the new year. I stand alone in the turning garden lifting a song for the ash-covered city, for its tumbled dead and the living who search, exhausted, remembering life. Words fly up, begging solace, and the answers that come sound nothing like the raw noise in angry men's throats. Between the fire and our fury, dreams disconnect from our hearts. Apples turn to ash, the honey of ironic prayer thickens to ash in the mouth. Everything we believe lies open for inspection; who shall live and who shall die, and who will be inscribed. From the east, the smoke floats up the river, across the country, over our eyes. The doves offer no song, absolutely still in the bitter day. The weight of war clouds the sky and twelve birds sit watching. The 20th Century Man Robert W. Proctor In 1918, I, a man of the 20th century, ordered 10,000 men like me over the top. A similar man, on the other side, ordered machine guns, howitzers, and mortars to fire. He had to stop my men. He did. Few of them returned. And most of them--like me-- were scarred in mind for life. I did it. He did it. His Emperor did it. My President did it. Our Stone Age ancestors did it. In a hundred days I sent a thousand bombers across the Channel to blow apart and incinerate my fellow man, just as some of them had gassed and burned to ashes many more of my fellow man. They did it. We did it. I did it. And you know something? I wasn't even born when I sent my fellow man to death at Belleau Wood; and only a child when I rained fire on Hamburg. But as certain as I live today, I did it. Years later, when I am gone, when others bemoan the slaughter at Verdun, the fiery atomization of Hiroshima, the disembowelment of Vietnam, the consuming fireballs of 9-11, death grants me no rest, because if others don't know him, I know the 20th century man behind those horrors. If it could, my earth bound fleshless jaw, bone grating against bone, would try to form these words: I---did---it. November 2002 A Poem for My Muslim Poet Friend Larry Jaffe I was not taught to hate or love, my depression era parents only trained survival of the meekest. When parental guidance spoke, it was work or be worked from above as slaves. Family was to be cared for as extension of self, blood of course thicker than water. Love was bestowed by gods not mortals. Liking was taken personally - " You are always loved ," they said. " We just don't always like you ," they spoke true. But I did not need to learn to hate you it came naturally a by product of heritage a natural extension of ancestral strife. One day I dropped out of ancient conclave, never having learned these lessons, actively fighting thoughts intrusive. It was then I decided if I was going to hate it would be for good reason and not self-indulgence. And it is for this reason, that when we met I saw no colour of nationality or culture I only saw poet. the sand that is everywhere rob mclennan you would be so very nice to question & be ready w/ a believable excuse seeking out the cause, so much left here has been broken a rattling of chains this is a noise you hear on a bus a context that supplies its own geographical chest pulld tight, as watching worlds collapse announcing the death of irony, even before the fires are out ash covers all in his apartment the space of weeks, & a few short blocks Good Morning Middle Age Robin Lim I woke with a backache. It's no use blaming the mattress, I got older. Here it is, the time I waited for, promising myself that my peers and I would change the world. From the clay of our hands and a few seeds of justice, we would grow peace and food for the people. Today I can't bear the pressure of listening to my friends, my goddamned friends, talking about meditation and art. Their heads twist side to side, puppets. They do this because they woke up with backaches too. They do this because they can't admit that they really care about their two or three cars, their VCR, their vacation in Florida. They earned their wealth, the right to ignore the lies. The lie that we in the United States elect a President, and all the lies he tells, smiling on their TV sets. The lie that this nightmare will be over after the next election. The lie that demonizes an underfed Iraqi child, who might, if we let her grow up, become a terrorist. She might give birth to a whole litter of terrorist pups, every one of them with a grenade arm, poised to take out your recreational vehicle with one thrust. When Congress gives this so-called President the infinite power to protect our jobs and our schools, where our children are taught to talk about meditation and art, these men will go home and try to have sex with their wives, or someone, anyone. Ignoring all the phone calls and the cries of the constituents, our Senator just wants to get it on. But this time, having gone too far, having betrayed every last dream, he can't get it up. In the basement, his son, and all our American babies, are huffing glue and household chemicals. On Election Day Jennifer Dick On election day, we came to the edge of our continent to watch a boat depart. It was a green day and if it were long ago or a cruise line we might've waved kerchiefs, thrown multi-colored pastel confetti, drunk champagne bubbling into sea-froth. But as it was, we stood silent. Some of us had forgotten to vote, others no longer cared, calling it a conspiracy, arguing, "makes no difference anyway." In a still row we raised our palms to shield our eyes from the glaring sun, watch the battleships set out to sea. Men in green, men in beige and grey camouflage, men in neatly-cropped hair, loins still stinging from all-nighters. Blue, brown, green, red-eyed men with round fingertips, earth-hand, fire, air, water hand men answered : "All hands on board, Sir !" Cutting a dark swath across the blue swells they looked back at us, believed we were saluting. Brothers, sons, uncles, fathers drift out. We stand ashore, waiting as if the net in our fingers were not sufficient to catch even one. This net spinning forth from our lips like webbing overnight, this rattle and din now ceased. The day was green and the tide bouyant. From afar years later perhaps you and I shall return to this shore of our continent and believe we can hear them singing robust songs as they return. Untitled d.m. Since the death of 500,000 Iraqis goes unmourned so I will not mourn them but continue drinking to excess. Though it has been written that under the eternal threat of war children gain anxiety disorders and are found banging their head against floor and other available cement - I will not mourn them. I will not mourn the dying and deformed because an idealist cannot be happy. And I want to be happy. So I will laugh and marry and continue drinking to excess.   Divine Haiku for the New Patriotism ryk mcintyre i don't like you, so i am blessed by gods that don't like your ass either ("I ain't gonna study war no more", but Woody Guthrie should've said, "I'm gonna study war some more so that it never needs to happen again." To a Veteran of the Last Wrong War Susan Ludvigson Every time we speak of it I understand another loneliness. What lives in us? Every atrocity, a landscape filled with mountain paths, every prayer committed to a deeper wilderness. The morning sky twists yellow above the nearest peak. I think of the spirit dissolving. You lift yourself onto a shaky elbow, your voice so low I can hardly hear. You speak of the origin of hymns, move your head slowly from side to side. You talk about the mind, its grooves carved deep. The hollow the head makes. Shocks to the psyche, buried in years, no light touching the body as detonations ripple through. From time to time, my hands warm on your skin, I dream what was intended. As the world threatens to implode, I turn in a strange kind of hope, though I am a child of the only myths in which the gods die too. What can we do against the determined dark? Easy Sampurna Chattarji Death is easy to pronounce. He deserved to die. They ought to be shot. Hanging's too good for him. The words fall glib. Throwaway lines sentencing them to death. Distant observer, you speak without guilt, or fear of misplaced allegiances. You just need something to say, that's all. The right sentiment, rightly declared whichever way your loyalties blow in the gust of the smokefilled air. A country burns. The death-dealers deserved to die, you say. Death is easy to pronounce. It's the smell of burning children that's hard. January 2003, Mumbai, India. Circling The Gulf A Gain A Loss, Ingrained Penn Kemp Signs proliferate as we pass by. Plastered on the auto dealership plate glass: SAVE THOU SANDS SAVE THOU SANDS. Save thou souls, save thy soul, grain of sand, rain of rant, cycles of want and plenty. We are so defined by the stories we tell and those we as children hear. For years, as I was growing up, `war stories' were served with dessert at the table. Over and over, I listened to my grandfather's tales of leading a regiment of Iroquois troops in battle on the killing grounds of France. This warrior tradition emerged in my son in a fantastical, twisted way. During an acute psychotic episode, my son was hospitalized. His terrible adventure, coinciding with the Gulf War, took on metaphoric overtone. Even the word "gulf" loomed between realities. Mind the gap, mine hole. At the height of concern about the possibilities of chemical, biological or nuclear warfare, he became convinced that he himself was radio-active, a bomb about to explode. Yet who is to say what his response to threats of nuclear annihilation should have been? To me, his was a tortured way of reinventing personal history, of linking himself up with our tradition of war service, of families disrupted by early deaths from wounds borne on the field of battle. With the end of the Gulf War, my son recovered. As a child, he had listened to my father's stories about his work as a bomb disposal expert in Scotland during the Second World War. That stress was internalized by my son with dreadful accuracy. I believe this literalization of memory occurs down the generations all the time. Our work is to stop the war in art and life so that the children don't continue to enact conflict. How do we experience peace as a fullness of life, not an absence of action and adventure? How do we live peace without constellating its opposite? A dream speaks: Dad gently warns me not to pay more attention to the dead. Their time is over. Sparse spring rains demand we plant the desert in grain. Women in Black Leza Lowitz Fields of gypsies growing dark across the Danube, dark across the desert, across the world, now at home. Widows and weeds. Homes of broken chairs, half-standing walls, empty door-frames, another fresh grave. Town square, open market rows of orange-red tomatoes, tattered clothes, blood-stained plaza centuries-old buildings stripped bare to brick. Across the Danube across the desert across the world now at home old women in black, fields of young men, families laid to waste women waiting for bread, counting grains of sugar, grains of salt, minutes, the hours, waiting for peace. Once friends, now enemies. Once lullabies, now eulogies. Old women in black bent in half, whispering across the world... when will it end? "Will they fight even over the moon?" Hands lain over another coffin, hands lain over their hearts, women in black praying, praying. from How It's Been Elmaz Abinader How has it been for you... since 9/11? You, the Arab, you mean. You say it with such sincerity and love that I almost forget to be frightened. * Might as well ask how it's been for me forever... how it's been watching hatchet images of my uncles starring enemies on t.v. How it's been for almost twenty years not one year, standing in airports, pronouncing my name, verifying my birthplace, and wishing it actually was different. * But don't ask me how it's been since 9/11. Ask them: the boy soldiers in lions' cages in Guantanamo bay, the Afghani villagers, standing at the tub while their homes are ransacked, the American boys shivering in the encroaching winter in a mountainside that does not remind them of Macon, or West Chicago or Harlem. Ask them where they lay their heads at night, and will it be there tomorrow. Ask all the thems in the Sudan, Somalia, Ivory Coast, Nicaragua, Colombia, Vieques, Phillipines, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, East Timor, Tibet, the countries in the Axis of Evil. South Central L.A., West and East Oakland, Newark, Chicago, Chiapas, Pine Ridge;Wounded Knee. Ask the people of Iraq whose prayers now must condemn our country because we have bulls eyed them, hair lined them; taken aim. war is gud 4 bizness in th 19th centur bill bissett war is gud 4 bizness in th 19th centur ee addiksyun 2 fossil fuel mind set sens but not sew gud 4 pees or life or 21st centuree aims receipes n realiteez or is it th wepons sales by evree countree 2 evree countree n th kontinualee shifting allianses changing tongues killing mor that have made th world sew unsafe sew squirellee that th i m f dusint seem 2 mind inkrees uv defisit 4 war yet 4 peesful programs that is seen as sew kleerlee fiscal irresponsibilitee munee 4 health 4 th environment not as gud as munee 4 big bizness deth masheens that will definitlee keep konsumrs down ducking n lying being lied 2 hurts us toxiciteez now we can sell yu all thees wepons uv kours but yu need 2 promise 2 follo our leeds in almost evree thing n 2 not use thees wepons un less we say theyr onlee 4 yr proteksyun n 4 paying us n 4 downgrading individual human life preventing wind powr n solar panels being usd as frendlee enerjee sources wch dont kill us like a lot uv organizd religyun can war famine povrtee hate is nevr as inter esting as love love is alwayze mor beautiful mor giving mor uplifting mor intricate generous refind nevr gross goez thru walls doors makes mor opnings that carree mor love bettr thn who controls th oil field Psychotic Sea Sonja A. Skarstedt The spread of algae amplifies undercurrents of disease crabs stutter and starfish are hooked on obliterations of lichen and foam did radios hiss like this the day before Pearl Harbour the day after Hiroshima? shores and shores away through foreign skies the crawl of bombs migratory as lice predatory wings deposit larvae their mothlike bodies sophisticated as microchips satellites map a watery screen each slick, foreseeable blip impassive as allegory goads the ocean's trampoline its red-tide arrogance its coral-toothed caves its bric-a-brac processions the sea spits out poxes parasitic brigades each trauma drives the malignant tide lacerations upset the sepia sand magnifies its scathed surfaces interplanetary jaundice post-radar transmissions inland inspections pump its arteries with purple connotations of mourning civilian echoes a woman's palms dipped in tuscan mark a wall for the dead the sound in her throat is permanently pierced. Women Washing Clothes in the Kabul River Susan Gubernat Their men, our men, are pulverizing cities into truckloads of human dust, bone splinters, ash that floats back into red lungs. And freeing them, for what? For laundry, hiking up the burkah and venturing out, the first time in years, to wade in a river, to find, at the shallow end, their wavy reflections in the mirroring waters. One girl bunches up her skirt and stares at her own pale legs extending down into the riverbed into another, matching pair. Her half-naked twin, attached at her soles, looks up. They laugh, squeezing the invisible muck between their toes. Her mother's broad backside is captured in the photograph on page one, millions will see her now, bent over, scrubbing in the old way, against a flat, wet rock. This is how we invade without apology, this display - the backs of her calves, her loose underwear. Our own homes are draped in flag cloth: the windows and the doors some of us peer out from now, furtively, in this other purdah. Bigger Than Time Dawna Rae Hicks I heard them scream in the valley of hatred when Lucrezia was in my mind I hear them wail, as Mona prayed: This tear in my eye is bigger than time I heard them grieve when the president was shot I heard them sing to keep the others alive I heard them shout as they went over the top and I heard them weep at the sorrow he had brought I heard their voices over the hills in a sad old earth tongue I heard the death-cry at night when only the good die young I heard the plea I heard the laugh I heard the sigh I heard the sigh when I found we were destined to destined to the tear in my eye is bigger than time transit Rip Bulkeley taken dog to put down in the British queue stiffupperlipping their saddened bits * wearing heavy burka squats in sodden verge just outside Eynsham hand she supplicates with lavishly scrolled in henna * motorway sacrificed lane with army convoys stride into service-stations bursting fulfilment * all along Calder ravine big gasmask and little bouncing gasmask warmly ferried by yellow lollipop gasmask * again big again bouncing again lollipop gasmask and again * treading about under the hill beneath steep birches sick and tired of beauty magpie cracks "wait" with its back to the stars "you just" - sorrow The Land of Hope Ethan Gilsdorf An opening between anvils blocking the sky: was the dark age parting? The clouds outside contain their own ideas, and release them as they fly eastward over the bois towards the steely blue city states and principalities, their fortresses and parking garages. The 10 am sun just kisses the facing rooftop on its journey up its snowy blue trajectory, its infinite orange-white core blinds me so I shift left to where the sun blast is bisected by the window frame, crucifying my good vision trying to look only towards the east, to the forest, the ring road, to the land of hope, they say, because we are gradually revealed by the roving planet repeating, because that direction endlessly lights itself along the way. The late afternoon light surprises someone hoarding his dogs and chicken coop in the shadow of the overpass. Surprises the houseplants and herbs left outdoors too late into winter's subterranean tunnel. Would a pot of coffee shimmering on a hotplate bring 100 years of peace? excerpts from little dead things Maggie Helwig the small bones of birds meaning: death from the air it is not clear where this is happening, this is happening everywhere *** dawn in a distant place these houses are burning while warriors move in an absence a yellow mountain small girl, blood on her face parts of a leg in the desert there is fear at the pass, the birds like living bullets, eddies of wind, beings that fly and fall *** sit in the dust and number the little dead things hold them in your guilty hands there is not much left to be known except that we are here we are all here the world is a single place and there shall be rumours of war and we shall attend in the dust Press conference Ana Doina It's hard to keep your senses orderly when hearing the general's words to visualise how all the heavy equipment will be moved through an alien landscape how the food will be cooked the laundry done while everything around is advancing or retreating, worst yet, exploding. It looks simple; all the toothpick flags stabbing the map; here a town we had conquered, there one where heavy fighting is still going on. On the flat map places look as nothing had happened though reports tell of old temples destroyed, roads closed, hospitals on fire children orphaned, people maimed. Today only the smell and the smoke of burned flesh, blood and smouldering ruins blackened an incinerating sunset. The general his voice calm, his poise almost jovial answers questions shuffling papers he rarely glances at. He seams to know all the answers, as if the war had taken place in a history book centuries ago. It is hard to keep your senses orderly when he, rolling his papers like a scroll says: we don't expect more than 2, maybe 3% casualties for our troops as if the forecasted dead their life pre-written on scrolls are ready for eternity like mummies packaged in history's embalming. Filofax David Harsent The entire township, heading north in cars, in trucks, on bikes, on foot, some with next to nothing, some choosing to cart (as it might be) armchair, armoire, samovar, black and white TV, toaster, Filofax, Magimix, ladle, spindle, spinet, bed and bedding, basin and basinette, passed (each in clear sight) lynx and wolverine and bobcat, heading south to the guns and the promise of fresh meat.   Nets At Gennesaret David Morley   One mirror: he walked the water and the water allowed it: a web's face of surface tensions: a pondskater's halo. We have toiled all night and have taken nothing: nevertheless, at thy word. `I sank three nets in the lake's edge, each with a plumb, lattice corks strung skew-whiff of the ante-lines, mesh thinned to catch swimming needles of elver.' And when this was done `the taut sea exploded with fish'. King Rat Edwin Torres the rain in Kabul smells like smoke overcooked mist burned by an ocean of fear All followers want to be leaders All leaders follow themselves All rats follow the king rat All king rats are rats In a pack of rats The newest one will be trampled The biggest and brightest will stand out The one who stands out will be killed eaten Stomped into the earth All rats follow themselves All tails as long as their outcome In a pack of rats The sharpest teeth The dirtiest dirt The slickest spit The lowest low The damnedest of the damned Will win every time All rats are rats In a world of rats All followers are rats In a world of rats All kings are rats In a world of rats Who needs cheese When we got rats In The Abundance Of Oxygen The Refugee Is Choked Essa Bokarr Sey Sparks! o! sparks! The rumbling sound shook our walls within the dusty desert. Earth quakes?! No! Typhoons?! No way!!! B fifty twos...Hmmm...souls are being wiped by styles and smiles. Is the bomber feeling the pain? Refugees are spreading like wild geese. Oxygen is abundant but they are choked by the whistling stones that are propelled by flames! Gunpowder cannot save us from napalm! Save the refugee-operation or save the powerful-operation?! Resolutions have been buried. Is might the answer? Shadows behind gallows or silhouettes upon pillows? Who's who within these wars of our time?. Those jailed cannot be bailed by truth and those bombing cannot snore when flying. Our time is as sour as lime. Please stop it! The ghosts that are peeping through a futuristic window will haunt our generation. Some want to rest in the west and eat cheese in the middle east. Oh lord! our time is sour. Kindly grease our world with peace. Gambia, 2003   Ballad Sean O'Brien   with apologies to William Empson   Here we go to war, boys - Rally round the flag. Tony cleans it up, boys - He's the oily rag. Tony talks in sentences And even paragraphs: When Dubya tries a speech act Half the planet laughs. Wonder what's at stake, boys? Why we're off to war? Someone on the take, or Was that the time before? Just keep it in the Firm boys, Like the OSS: Take away the `O', boys - Familiar address? Could it be the oil, boys, Waiting in the ground? Could it be the oil, boys? Is the planet round? Treat us all like mushrooms, Hidden from the light. Here it comes again, boys, Lorry load of shite. Let `em show the way, boys, Dubya and Tone, And if they want to fight, boys, Let `em fight alone. Let `em ride a missile Down to old Baghdad. Never coming back, boys - Wouldn't that be sad? 1 February 2003 The Palace of Art George Szirtes In a classical porch two angels Are steadily beating their God. You must train your deities properly. No point sparing the rod. St Veronica lends her hankie To the fallen. Next day she opens it up: Oh my god! I have taken his face away. A wheel on a pole. A raven. The crowd has formed a ring. In the centre: death. And still they keep coming. Always this bare hillside and the crowd huddling and thinking aloud, thoughts that collect in the valley beneath with folded spectacles, shoes, gold teeth. It is awfully black down there, And their limbs are terribly bent: How lifelike the darkness is We seemed to be doomed to invent. Hell is muscular and crowded Like a gym where the demons work out Their frustrations on apparatus Unhindered by rust or by doubt. God slides down the chute of his robe: His body seems almost to float. The late romantic chorus of love Belts on in full throat. We watch the universe collapsing About the victim's head. The living are turned away from us. Not so the dead. Soldiers asleep, he stands Stiff backed: his eyes burn. Resurrection begins. Now it is our turn. You put your fingers in the wound Gingerly, since you doubt. The problem is not so much poking it in As getting the damn thing out. My peculiar talents Ifor Thomas I linger next to the school ice cream van Threaten the angelic horrors As their tongues lap the cones Say I believe in child slavery I bite the neck of the strange woman I'm standing next to in the lift growl into her flesh "take me to Transylvania - now" I wander into the art gallery reeking of gasoline and carrying a flame thrower exclaim there's a need for more spontaneity I steer this car into the queue at the bus stop and as my wipers beat away blood say "whoops" I sprinkle white powder into an envelope send it to the mayor with the message Snort anthrax sucker I stand up in the plane shout - my shoes are filled with gelignite we are all going down And if I had a powerful rifle And if my cross hairs Were fixed on your chest do you think I'd hesitate before pulling the trigger? When they drag me into the dock wearing an orange suit weighed down with chains wild-eyed, spitting feathers the judge accepts that I am a victim of a violent society offers me 999 years in high security - Or he says perhaps a spell in the army may suit your peculiar talents It's the army for me I agree. I Dream of War James Cervantes I dream of war. I dream of poets being poets along a riverbank in a war. There are no books, no prizes, and they pack food in boxes: cereal, rice, dried fruit, bread, and beans, each in their plastic bag, for they must row across the river to gather. They must leave their parapets of three stone walls open to the land away from water, and open to the sky. They are dreamless in the dream and wake to row every day. When they bend to fill their boxes or sweep bare ground, they are faceless, and it is only hands and arms that row, only hands that open palms up to read the air. If you are one of them and stay behind, you see the broad, brown river and a face, finally, across the water, too small even for a child, and there is time before you hear the sound of bloodless hands, a clap that starts the song. Candle, Flame, Stained Glass and Prayer for Peace John Kinsella for Veronica Brady   Heliolithic, the taper honing the flame ready for the passing, a plastic dish of solid naphtha awaits its passive melting, set rigidly as counterbalance, a wrought iron candelabrum bracing ceramic insulators left over from the town's rewiring - now ensuring the thought is delivered safely.   The trinity unsettles and reseats itself, the late morning sun cuts through the glass and foot-notes the altar. Ezra moves through the large print of text and looks far into Babylon. A child unknowingly prays for peace, enjoys the church as a house with thick doors to keep the fear out, though he's not sure about the glass. His father considers the candle, the flame, how it fills the room, climbs beyond the roof, outreaches itself.   From beneath the pews a liquid almost gold seeks to flow freely over the floor - boards parted by tremors preventing this. The father knows it to be the candle, the flame wallowing in its downfall, drowning at the source. Legend would have it a bird passes through a panel of stained glass to resurrect the flame by lifting the wick and with rapid movement of its wings cooling the naphtha. Legend has it the flame hardens in its beak and follows the release, that the gold beneath the pews retreats, that the father prays aloud for peace.   News Theatre John Hartley Williams Meanwhile Mouse straight-arms the doorframe of the hole in the wainscot, eyes up Tarnished Tom, whose floorbrush tail sweeps the carpet. The vast thighs of Doris Blooper squeak together. From the door her nasal voice calls kiddy kiddy kiddy. Bucko male chauvinist Tarnished Tom Pussycat has eyes on Meanwhile Mouse, who's got Doris riding shotgun. Wait till Doris' thighs go shuffle-piffling off. OK, OK, mouse - enjoy a little feminine mouse irony, why don't you? Show a bit of slender rodent leg. Taunt old Tarnished Tom. Just wait. Doris squeaks into her radiant stainless blossom kitchen and back into the living room. Imagine mouse horror, cat consternation when Doris slides her skirts up to her waist, tips herself into a chair, and stirs a broom handle briskly in the warm soupbowl between her thighs. All together.in italics now! Academymiceawards Irradiatedhorsetesticlehamburgers, Gimmerockets Gimmebiggerrockets Nukethealiens Gimmethestars Gimmethecosmos Oooooh... Meanwhile Mouse, Tarnished Tom Pussycat.hey!.. they just look at each other in creaturely crumpleface doom cartoon dismay. Exaggerated hush-hush tippytoe goose-step. They're leaving by the kitchen door. They're vanishing down a winding road. They're spinning in a highly-coloured whirlpool. A loopy kind of writing is writing by itself: No joke babies. War is next. Letter to Hayden Carruth Marilyn Hacker Dear Hayden, I have owed you a letter for one month, or two - your last one's misplaced. But I'm back in New York. The world is howling, bleeding and dying in banner headlines. No hope from youthful pacifists, elderly anarchists; no solutions from diplomats. Men maddened with revealed religion murder their neighbours with righteous fervour, while, claiming they're "defending democracy," our homespun junta exports the war machine. They, too, have daily prayer-meetings, photo-op-perfect for tame reporters. ("God Bless America" would be blasphemy if there were a god concerned with humanity.) Marie is blunt about it: things were less awful (Stateside) in1940. I wasn't born. I've read shelves of books about France under Vichy after the armistice: war at imagination's distance. Distance is telescoped now, shrinks daily. Jews who learned their comportment from storm-troopers act out the nightmares that woke their grandmothers; Jews sit, black-clad, claim peace: their vigil's not on the whistlestop pol's agenda. "Our" loss is grave: American, sacralized. We are dismayed that dead Palestinians, Kashmiris, Chechens, Guatemalans, also are mourned with demands for vengeance. "Our" loss is grave, that is, till a president in spanking-new non-combatant uniform mandates a war: then, men and women dying for oil will be needed heroes. I'd rather live in France (or live anywhere there's literate debate in the newspapers). The English language is my mother tongue, but it travels. Asylum, exile? I know where I feel more like a foreigner now that it seems my birth country silences dissent with fear. Of death? Of difference? I know which city lightens my mornings. You had New England; I had diaspora, an old folk song: "Wish I was where I would be, Then I'd be where I am not." Would that joy claimed its citizens, issued passports. "First, do no harm," physicians, not presidents, swear when inducted. I'm tired of rhetoric, theirs or journalists' or my own ranting. I'd like to hole up with Blake and Crashaw - but there's a stack of student endeavours that I've got to read, and write some encouraging words on. Five hours of class tomorrow; Tuesday , a dawn flight to California. Unrhymed Peace Sonnet Marilyn Nelson Who are the Good Guys now? Who are the bad? Nobody's wearing Stetsons, black or white. Each has a history of evil deeds: one individual, one centuries of rapine and ideals. It's almost noon. One leader straps on bombs. The armies mass. We'll blow that s.o.b. to kingdom come, everyone thinks; bring on Armageddon! Yosemite Sam, frustrated and enraged, jumps up and down, shooting holes in the clouds. And Africa is dying out, of AIDS. Why the hell doesn't the moving finger write? What the hell are you waiting for, my God? Why don't you tell those bastards not to fight? For Pete's sake, send an angel! Burn a bush! January 28, 2003, a.m. Crossing Kurdistan Nadine McInnis The sky is a country we cross with our heads bowed down. We no longer notice the mud, so chilled the bones of our feet ache. It is not our mud, these are not our mountains, complicated with invisible borders, rising and falling like a fever. But when the sky speaks, we strain to listen to dialects we cannot understand: thunder and helicopters, sleet cooling the babies in our arms until they are still as stones. The burden we carry lightens as they drift up and become citizens of the sky and what falls from the sky is called relief. Sweet and strange, fall chewing gum, hard candy, powdered instant tea. This must be what children eat in heaven, or in America, after they've already had their fill. This Sky of Lost Miles Ranjit Hoskote Shield your eyes from this oblong patch of light where the towers once stood, where now there floods on our TV screens this sky of lost miles, miles yet to be - now never to be - redeemed, this sky that showers a rain of ash and scorched maple leaves, of powdered glass that settles on bridges and cars, a rain through which phantoms trundle their barrows, carrying heads, arms, bricks that rained from the burning towers, and through this poisoned rain we see as if for the first time, a sky that showers missiles without warning, striking without prejudice the present sacrifice. Heap up your cinders, pray for your dead, our dead: Baghdad, too, was a city of high towers once, New York.   Dear Lady, Fear No Poetry Rebecca Sellars Dear lady, fear no poetry Those you revere so highly Twain, Whitman, Hughes Even your beloved Emily Wrote beyond Bees and blades of grass They wrote the human condition How can you turn your back on the human condition of all times now? Now is the time to look beyond the sweetness the goodness the pleasantries of poetry read in parlours And consider the reflection poetry all poetry evokes not to remain silent but to provoke thought to provoke question not to ignore the eyes we have all seen, Children's eyes, black moons reflecting emptiness, Do not promote war, Dear Lady, let the children live Do not fear it, Dear Lady Let the people speak Do not turn your back Patroness of poets Give open your parlour Our Parlour Let the poets read January meadow, Sandra M. Gilbert whistles and simmers in the low, south-sliding California sun, clack of crows in hedgerows, prickle of grasses still abiding winter pallor, silence of cypresses upholding sheaves of needles- here they are! -- like gifts of darkness to a sky whose light's so fierce and clear it arches like forever in the tiny shine of noontime minutes. The tree guy's dragged and dumped the tree that toppled last week (when the power failed). Let's gather sunshine now, lounge in the hot tub, tipple a little, watch the twelve o'clock news together-- (peace marchers shouting in the city under a sky like this, so blue, so pretty......)   From Peace Walk & Rally, San Francisco Stephen Vincent If You Are Not Outraged You Are Not Paying Attention No Blood for Oil Did Your Car Start This Walk? How Many Lives Per Gallon? Go Solar Not Ballistic Start Drafting SUV Drivers Now Bush on Crack Don't Attack Iraq Somewhere in Texas A Village (Crawford) Is Missing An Idiot Clone Change Needed: A Heart for Cheney A Brain for Bush Courage for Powell War Is A Tragedy Not A Strategy War Orphans Make Great Terrorists Homeland Insecurity January 18, 2003   Can We Have Some Peace and Quiet Please? Eliot Katz The belligerent voices are yelling in the streets & on the radios calling for the big bombs of peace to fall, the smart bombs, the bombs that have passed their college entrance exams. It's Orwellian the way everyone claims Orwell for their side--these days everyone is fighting on behalf of Orwell and God. Years ago Don Rumsfeld & Saddam Hussein met in the corner & exchanged secret diplomatic handshakes-- it is only after peaceful gestures like these that the missiles can fly. In the meantime, the time between the world mean as is and the world we mean to become, the endless rains are Yehuda Amichai's tears watching men still violently beating their swords into ploughshares and back into rifles & remote-control fighter planes. On the corner of Spring & Broadway, a taxicab driver threw a baby lamb out the passenger-side door--everyone in a two-block radius ran away screaming. In New York City the yelling is so loud and the quiet so quiet that everyone I know, just below the surface, is scared out their wits, knowing the violence these days that can follow an apparent peace. They are calling Senators with empathetic American voices, urging earthly generosity and kindness, which their elected leaders interpret as a vote for pre-emptive strikes. The next century's gods have not yet been born and the last century's are no longer able to show a child the simple magic trick of pulling its fingers away from a newly lit flame. To Miklós Radnóti Yerra Sugarman Radnóti was a well-known Hungarian poet, whose "body was exhumed from a mass grave in 1946. His widow, going through his pockets, discovered a notebook full of [his] poems." My mind throws its crumbs into the night's stopped river. This is its ceremony to cast off sin, to become pure, What we Jews call Tashlich, an emptying of pockets. Night's dark darkened by the museum of human ash, its lights switched off. The stars' corollas stammer and, muzzled by clouds, vanish. A spot of blood throbs under God's moony thumbnail. I would like you to know our foundations for burning flesh have not yet been razed. I pay their victims homage by day's inebriated bright. But understand, I still love the glass scent given off by groves of lemon. I gladly feel the olive trees' arthritic branches pulsing in my knees. And despite everything, I participate in the crime of music. My body still an instrument, strums its many forms of abandonment. (Although I ask you whether what's truly ephemeral can be abandoned.) My lips, after passion, scrape like leaves along pavement, incoherent, tarrying. Yes, my mind flings crusts into the night's taut river. And I see by the moon's weak lamp, it's as flat as the bottom of a pot. The night so motionless, it seems an inertia devised by angels or devils, Who pull on it from both ends. The night's surface like a trampoline, resistant, rubber. And so, my sins fly back at me. They splash my face like spindrift, leaving river on my lips. They reenter me through my eyes and teeth, As my mind rears up, a wild horse. For I understand, you were murdered by hands like mine. And I understand I am helpless, a reveler at the table of the void, A pilgrim who's journeyed only to discover herself. And I'm ashamed to speak you or read the poems you shine on my skin. And the sky does not kindly let me empty my pockets. For The Birds Bob Holman The Birds are whispering Tweets into my ears Tweet tweet Tweet tweet I must be a Saint St. All of a Sudden What are they tweeting? That is between Me and the Birds Now I am in The Birds And they are in me They are dive-bombing me They seem no longer To regard me as saint And I seem to be running As St. Alfred Lord Hitchcock Screams out "Cut! Cut!" However the Birds are not cutting They are not whispering Tweets anymore either They are slicing and diving And I am running across the desert Is it because I would not tell my own people The secrets of the Birds? Who are my people, anyway, I ponder Now that I am a movie star As I stumble on in the desert Upon the answers I receive Divine illumination and I see Tiny insects swarm round the heads Of the Birds that swarm round me Tiny insects dive-bomb Birds Birds dive-bomb me I can no longer translate Tweet tweet into Bzz bzz Why do you hate me so I wrote this in the movies Even in the dark these thoughts Do not stop dive-bombing It is dark here It is hard to write in the dark It is hard to think in the dark The bombing outside takes on a steady rhythm As I pull down my mask, get runway clearance And take off with my babies under my wings Claws extended, bill open and screaming Tweet tweet N.O.T.R.O.T.C. Mark Rudman ROTC struck the wrong chord with me. I couldn't take it seriously. I raised the question with my friends, no, they didn't like it but it was required to graduate high school in Salt Lake City. I hadn't thought much about pacifism by the age of fourteen, but had warred against war all my life; I tormented the Rabbi with the question why? Why why why? A dispute over land. Was this a reason for a man to die? ROTC struck the wrong chord with me. I kept wondering how to be excused. Asthma would keep me out of the army but not exempt me from ROTC. We were required to wear the heavy woolen uniforms all day every Monday, but since drill preceded first period I wore a tee shirt and jeans underneath and changed in the bathroom-- a simple, elegant solution until a tall senior crashed through the BOYS bathroom door while I, now in my tee shirt and jeans, was stuffing the woolen uniform into my briefcase. He asked "what's your name private." "Tom Jones," I fired back. "That's insubordination," he said, and grabbed my left arm hard with his right and marched me down to Colonel Will. I shook myself free of his grip and glowered. "Do you know what insubordination means, private?" They stared, jaws clenched, faces red. Private--what a joke. "Not telling the truth?" "To an officer, and that makes it worse. I regret to say you're out for the year. Unless you're willing to get here an hour before school and march around the track carrying your rifle and infantry pack." "For how long?" "How long do you think, Private RUDMAN, until school lets out, is that clear." When he said "clear" I glanced down at his spit- shined shoes, saluted, and asked if he cared where I dropped off my uniform, swivelled and walked away while he, apoplectic, boomed abuses, threatened repercussions- ROTC struck the wrong chord with me. In another life the Colonel'd been a pit bull. Yet he appeared almost likeable when I glimpsed him waiting in line at the 7-11 or chopping at a golf ball. To be fair, I take it back, to be accurate, I had more freedom to behave this way than the Mormon kids for whom this was life. I knew that my real father would take my side when I said that there was no way I would stay and finish high school in Salt Lake City. ROTC struck the wrong chord with me. No War Then Fred Johnston To The Lighthouse lay on a pillow Big enough for both of us. The curtained room was warm, quiet - We made love here. No war then. The radio was a long way off, A voice in another part of the house. A gasometer gloomed on the garden, Blood-rust coloured; we were near The sea, and we had a few friends, Innocent as dust, as leaves falling - We know better now. Too grown for Our own good, war is everywhere. These bad days I think (forgive me) That it could be no possible sin now To feel your breath in my breath In such a warm, quiet room.   My Collaboration with George Bush Robert Adamson Quote of the Day: New York Times "Our wars have won for us every hour we live in freedom." PRESIDENT BUSH, at a cemetery above Omaha Beach 27-5-2002 Our wars have won for us every hour we live in freedom our freedom is for us a thing of countless hours and after we win each war we wait in fear once more the more we win the less time there is for living The more we win the less time there is for living yet our wars have won for us every hour we live in freedom as we fear what war brings we rejoice in the hours won and go on to live out fears in the way we wage each war Our wars have won for us every hour we live in freedom even though to afford this freedom costs a bomb we teach our youth that war will make them free their freedom is for us a thing of countless hours and as we take away from them their secret liberties they understand that living here involves a dreadful fee: Our wars have won for us every hour we live in freedom our freedom is for us a thing of countless hours Waiting for the Marines Fadel K. Jabr Translated from the Arabic original by the poet Twelve years have passed And the Iraqis are turning over Like skewered fish On the fire of waiting. The first year of the sanctions They said: The Arabs will come They will come with love, flour, and the rights of kinship. The year passed with its long seasons The Arabs never came And sent no explanation for the delay. The second year of the sanctions They said: The Muslims will come They will come with rice, goodness, and the predators' leftovers The year passed with its long seasons The Muslims never came And sent no explanation for the delay. The third year of the sanctions They said: The world will come They will come with manna, solace, and human rights The year passed with its long seasons The world never came And sent no explanation for the delay. The fourth year of the sanctions They said: The Americans will come They will come with hope, sugar, and warm feelings The year passed with its long seasons The Americans never came And sent no explanation for the delay. The fifth year of the sanctions They said: The opposition will come They will come with victories, water, and air The year passed with its long seasons The opposition never came And sent no explanation for the delay. The sixth year of the sanctions They said: We will sell whatever is extra We will be frugal until relief comes The year passed with its long seasons The Iraqis sold all unnecessary things Relief never came And sent no explanation for the delay. The seventh year of the sanctions They said: We will give up our semi-necessities We will be patient until we get support The year passed with its long seasons The support never came And sent no explanation for the delay. The eighth year of the sanctions They said: We will sell some of our organs We will be strong until the coming of justice The year passed with its long seasons Justice never came And sent no explanation for the delay. The ninth year of the sanctions They said: We will sell some of our children We will sacrifice until the coming of mercy The year passed with its long seasons Mercy never came And sent no explanation for the delay. The tenth year of the sanctions They said: We will emigrate To the wide world of Allah We will entertain ourselves with hope Until the coming of the gods' orders The Iraqis separated east and west The year passed with its long seasons The gods' orders never came And sent no explanation for the delay. The eleventh year of the sanctions They said: The best thing for us is to die We will stay settled in our graves Until the coming of the day of judgement The year passed with its long seasons Cancer, tuberculosis, and leukaemia consumed their bodies The day of judgement never came And sent no explanation for the delay. The twelfth year of the sanctions The Iraqis found nothing to wait for They said: Now is the time For the earth's worms to devour us They might rescue us from this hell Where we are turning over like skewered fish.   Rania Curtis Doebbler (based on an interview with 5 year old Rania in Baghdad) Wildly flinging arms, the furry of colour of a child's lit eyes, the tales of dress and hair, flung into the sky, mixed with holler. Her ornamented animation, tears lingering in perpetual balance, failing to fall, glimmering, Silver, under her black eyes. "From the sky will come the fire. and men will come, all in black to take daddy and mommy.. and my brother, he will stop them. He will hit them. He will defend me. But they will put off my arms and legs." Shuttering in excitement, terrified by what she sees, Rania, just one little girl, cowering under the clouds of war, waiting, hoping, losing, day by day, her life in any other way. The Servant Mimi Khalvati Ma'mad, hurry, water the rose. Blessed is the English one that grows out in the rain. Water is scarce, blood not so. Blood is the open drain that flows out in the rain. Bring in the lamp, the olive's flame. Pity the crippled flame that blows out in the rain. Where are the children? What is the time? Time is the terror curfew throws out in the rain. Hurry, Ma'mad, home to your child. Wherever my namesake, Maryam, goes out in the rain. The Border Grace Schulman Perhaps because of the twiggy cigars he offered me, his showy "Come, American," the outstretched hand, the hasty, sidelong stares at shorts I packed to wear in whitehot sun and windblown hair, I knew he was a friend. On my side of the gunfire, date-palm fronds waved in groves. On his, white sand. In Kfar Saba, they warned, don't walk the path too near the border. Soldiers were shot, and would be, ours, theirs; and new borders, none deadlier than the mind's. Why was it then I had to cross, and why, at that dizzying moment, fear disguised as ignorance, I asked: "Where is the border?" "Moved," he answered. "Now it is where you stand."   KOREAEBOOKSTYLEFILE_1.1.0O)e?{' A c Times New RomandefaultdefaultTimes New Romanhr_file_0 para0hr_file_0 para0Times New Romanhr_file_0 para1hr_file_0 para1Times New Romanhr_file_0 para2hr_file_0 para2Times New Romanhr_file_0 para3hr_file_0 para3Times New Romanhr_file_0 para4hr_file_0 para4Times New Romanhr_file_0 para5hr_file_0 para5Times New RomanPPhr_file_0 para6hr_file_0 para6Times New Roman((hr_file_0 para7hr_file_0 para7Times New Romanhr_file_0 para8hr_file_0 para8Times New Romanhr_file_0 para9hr_file_0 para9Times New Roman<<hr_file_0 para10hr_file_0 para10Times New RomanbrbrTimes New RomanparaparaTimes New RomanfiggrfiggrTimes New Romanfig.contfig.contTimes New Roman tablepara tableparaTimes New RomanlistparalistparaTimes New RomanfontfontKOREAEBOOKSTYLEFILE_1.1.0O)e?{' A c Times New RomandefaultdefaultTimes New Romanhr_file_0 para0hr_file_0 para0Times New Romanhr_file_0 para1hr_file_0 para1Times New Romanhr_file_0 para2hr_file_0 para2Times New Romanhr_file_0 para3hr_file_0 para3Times New Romanhr_file_0 para4hr_file_0 para4Times New Romanhr_file_0 para5hr_file_0 para5Times New RomanPPhr_file_0 para6hr_file_0 para6Times New Roman((hr_file_0 para7hr_file_0 para7Times New Romanhr_file_0 para8hr_file_0 para8Times New Romanhr_file_0 para9hr_file_0 para9Times New Roman<<hr_file_0 para10hr_file_0 para10Times New RomanbrbrTimes New RomanparaparaTimes New RomanfiggrfiggrTimes New Romanfig.contfig.contTimes New Roman tablepara tableparaTimes New RomanlistparalistparaTimes New RomanfontfontKOREAEBOOKSTYLEFILE_1.1.0O)e?{' A c Times New RomandefaultdefaultTimes New Romanhr_file_0 para0hr_file_0 para0Times New Romanhr_file_0 para1hr_file_0 para1Times New Romanhr_file_0 para2hr_file_0 para2Times New Romanhr_file_0 para3hr_file_0 para3Times New Romanhr_file_0 para4hr_file_0 para4Times New Romanhr_file_0 para5hr_file_0 para5Times New RomanPPhr_file_0 para6hr_file_0 para6Times New Roman((hr_file_0 para7hr_file_0 para7Times New Romanhr_file_0 para8hr_file_0 para8Times New Romanhr_file_0 para9hr_file_0 para9Times New Roman<<hr_file_0 para10hr_file_0 para10Times New RomanbrbrTimes New RomanparaparaTimes New RomanfiggrfiggrTimes New Romanfig.contfig.contTimes New Roman tablepara tableparaTimes New RomanlistparalistparaTimes New RomanfontfontKOREAEBOOKSTYLEFILE_1.1.0O)e?{' A c Times New RomandefaultdefaultTimes New Romanhr_file_0 para0hr_file_0 para0Times New Romanhr_file_0 para1hr_file_0 para1Times New Romanhr_file_0 para2hr_file_0 para2Times New Romanhr_file_0 para3hr_file_0 para3Times New Romanhr_file_0 para4hr_file_0 para4Times New Romanhr_file_0 para5hr_file_0 para5Times New RomanPPhr_file_0 para6hr_file_0 para6Times New Roman((hr_file_0 para7hr_file_0 para7Times New Romanhr_file_0 para8hr_file_0 para8Times New Romanhr_file_0 para9hr_file_0 para9Times New Roman<<hr_file_0 para10hr_file_0 para10Times New RomanbrbrTimes New RomanparaparaTimes New RomanfiggrfiggrTimes New Romanfig.contfig.contTimes New Roman tablepara tableparaTimes New RomanlistparalistparaTimes New RomanfontfontKOREAEBOOKSTYLEFILE_1.1.0O)e?{' A c Times New RomandefaultdefaultTimes New Romanhr_file_0 para0hr_file_0 para0Times New Romanhr_file_0 para1hr_file_0 para1Times New Romanhr_file_0 para2hr_file_0 para2Times New Romanhr_file_0 para3hr_file_0 para3Times New Romanhr_file_0 para4hr_file_0 para4Times New Romanhr_file_0 para5hr_file_0 para5Times New RomanPPhr_file_0 para6hr_file_0 para6Times New Roman((hr_file_0 para7hr_file_0 para7Times New Romanhr_file_0 para8hr_file_0 para8Times New Romanhr_file_0 para9hr_file_0 para9Times New Roman<<hr_file_0 para10hr_file_0 para10Times New RomanbrbrTimes New RomanparaparaTimes New RomanfiggrfiggrTimes New Romanfig.contfig.contTimes New Roman tablepara tableparaTimes New RomanlistparalistparaTimes New RomanfontfontJFIFC    #%$""!&+7/&)4)!"0A149;>>>%.DIC;C  ;("(;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;" }!1AQa"q2#BR$3br %&'()*456789:CDEFGHIJSTUVWXYZcdefghijstuvwxyz w!1AQaq"2B #3Rbr $4%&'()*56789:CDEFGHIJSTUVWXYZcdefghijstuvwxyz ?j( ( ( +7RKV$d,*W,i-!xF+x5Y%"rNk(ԼAh쫩jvl*ΨOf'?A[f\>Tڗƿ_qm5/W+}K"w,F}nq­¿ 4˺&9*ŪOf.Ya*jx[Fы_\WG?b嶟i-*ZI(xƣk^m*UG03*rJs'?M%>l*wUOo[/7zuW[k6rN02r0Yֻi$[OmV9=-_%wc[21p>89\y%3__6=gջIC  ඃim_"Pr>^s@yQjEMMJ*#&ŔH(5q#I+."ӥ5U 1WNJ̌NNA}Eq v_k7>/|e5%O-bp8V:3) )Sb@^ǔmOӾ-ޡ,[%c+ڔxNWVaˣ ~uO>%7}ǔWV7&>Iٯ7cHCR i{ȕ-Y6A<έW *OJ%g`)QEQEQExǿ1kӾ=c`я^c@G?bVu'!v<-#n_ů|I'VOL@#U+wOQ*ZGC ;haHaBqUP:KE;M, nl.>eXgЃzW?&ůkl}%-p~jkFF-}!MT7:qINj( 3M4,,- 'VJZ0i/gkC!2+sMcjWt$}f/^?zm%g}f1yO)Go x/6/g];cTt{_S̿rڽ'W?Ij~Ly~ON.];N)g3qn*هQ]^zt:{-1b)8˞pkmg:\scQNa"GV[0ºLj麌cEiwY W qSW&\Ol*`(((~=c`я^c^G+z?fGτ- ۣ1k_G[Vsa3#V_b+O?5i((8Muы_5ҟk FF-}t})iJZ+4?܏F|_N|WiJ;St)'#7zn ĬoC/Bޓ14'qJҪai6q3o1ıl9Z'wp)QEQEQExǿ1kӾ=c`я^c@G?by]߅榾P?wA"|mZ~H1Y@*]4!*kojvHfñpy#zt .hCCSN2I~D\g#_Gxgt,֧›K<(}xxQC޶KПVv(|WiJ? Z:Ǚ0lO/]FM1'}5_5|MԘ6h((((((~=c`я^c^G+z?#*G<-#n_ů(YP+Ahxh$ VčM z?wq)}Wr/ _ hz)Ȅ` @??&tF-|_At6XfT+7|>#hq9?+KXeQJW|Ѥ_>WKQlm VqXv?}%+ѻkb1cS_6{Y"۰RB[ }x=Y5MG\`D1ET=o((((((((~=c`я^c_E{ZQ]]l6szogfO?]ymy*]3W>"I>pl!8:W ?L[UխD BI|qo5Ė<3D^7RH= }\{/H哷 s:b8_^zo,#s$Q ׯjI}]koy3=OׇjZyH1}7w=J;k vl| y:O3j>'4|ɤvcZ̯'#kk#'勸YIq%jZu䈻-#@Ci|z$?c?b0lxO)w2Đ\ZF0 +~GOC5ݺ[jV3J7.y<QZfJm`9u m?Ѯ'̶tԍYX_-PО mSSdpz*~1TjxH`U,~|~ݯG]H*s4km[K%bDkVpʫ}7d{@iʮܳld r2Њ-o85ԭ!؞ݿ"y_Z=4a! t?ggPef^>F_=;#-m a/@Gjwyv]s<s^ oM}2#>=z/˦{,CQ%Q^[8uwaIC)pEu־6}n\B+$ZZ:Ј]σGė_ BܵF9W`^0kBU0K@>Y_ ߎ:"C_\پsdh88"<AM|xY{$&0FrāI%i}%ѯXRP?BğG^HDKZF8?ֲ,>)xOHܳZ;YEI tw访9]AS RW9HWoI|ZwZ2YDYgy2DJhk` b<z2p~#,g Om-D;utQEQEQEQEQEQEtz),|C56ր)@itz+Oosikw [ cve_btܛPÃl[J]"+d@3g5Z~fQ~D0$~$cQ5 !i9R:ds8> ="#?uz7D$|zuZ hBIë<_x'yVC"C_/^ ϥjVڅQ=,eF9{_!tE$)/W2.2=Et[/M#/zhty쮕Ѥ#*Ѱ? oW]=:a`jB:xC/ğV3k+2B%ׯr- ѼR]J= }Eyw밾eML1V_^} Q((((((#FIV~ǪנV#FIV~Ǫנ{Q@>|vgaϯU7 l~٫㷇fѬtlϖ}yGGD[IA8AH93@qU+|m%ߎ4H]XU]ŏw-t;/$!]ʹp6r=)>xv]CM:Pn+ {Kn("$?B'skq@2X޾hӯ5;]B[Yd 8,@bQ\׶1w~PH#[<7[5H̬'\( P:@kZ)} |k@M%i}%ѯ]q iIkG.Z1.ȍ{ W|q𕴺Rx%Xq!I }1?~)&Yg5olȮ/ŝ7}H-…© O9%ܶ>;&q]7ƾ3k;e..qvm}9@Q@Q@Q@Q@Q@Q@_~i4boo(!aۂA<MMݍ\E尛nxQ@Q@  x'%E*`x W}FtB]0Bc?~g4Pw!~YcFK*D|?i,zd95FT6r9{sڀ4/ OwMaq#wpϺ@Pz?&Kf&e}w<@Еn0J?(ּu˥.qBe2o_;vcOh҈ʑ+A8^ϨgK`, ̀;ri&LjgX،ʄ;(փt mY%0WX8֌q 8|>f/"ђV(U Fa{J FwONK?5/ xXIYkYqÌz۽j|tԧkK >Fxfc5Oυt ]6bXdIe*o|s׈/]6ůeCQEjcT9mJ,99 Oj?Iܷ zԴv~3jڿf2:7'۟Zz MlN[aMm}yOM<ğ`/y&e% +@Ɓ^hg<=gm[LbCr0AsWӵ .d{rI8 A=O,/|CcMΓtLg֯Rsc`$s,>h?>ӿu+ɝ61=*iԼ ZKy6coTW"N`5^t-Ǿ W,Ŕ9m?,v?|= !uO6ir1Z?F]^+6_8_kEW/\_]`kΑȲ'n]jW4<3X$ķ3[t0pAyϵs) uWl4}e%3'#۩=)ڽl ӂ `w8>&x=Λj6Q#v%B+Ђ8&?CW5u-6[N$'Q+W.q_1h1׃uo߇ 5aeU۶-pygj t dhTm)Hkh3v7[o hǷt^j?z[g=]'Z%@2iZ2|j v<`֟įƯeo2iٔ7m2PzzsTPxKH[_]ء=i-TI9L (((((((--c@F:N5yMٌg)OVӯR}+럈0[|CzvoҾOk~O]& jSR%V]oSм/gs^i3ު3pJs g܃m{: ހ</b_ \Mwm&C$YC$YIkj_&k@ _xWEU_ ҹ; +rQGo~> &/@Yo?ƶ͹5Q< zgÿڜz.1\< C4R!J5v]1y]Ķ1\cU`rh*;yDL:H3RPEPEPEPEPEPEP?x{G@zi׋I~::?կWW?to@>ֻo_>ֻo_uM?o־J|%"n`~OBj|%[i^-ҵ 1$Rv<Mu~N?? ҴۍcUm6Rp2Os@F7[&kxU}\^,M7+9 85MpZnsaqεiܤPټk"6`[Wټk"6`[P?KkwSzTu9 P>Q@pD6WZ+9 ,S|,qq'QOگ(Hvk׹ɯP9 j0PZqyM*pgހ=~0GE ?RQEQEQEQEQEQEQEx@zi׋״~?x}+㫿7SZ|uwFt럳}kA޶=ȝaaoX}kA޶=ȝaao@_ZKD-k2p+ 2Q1ʠPr8(&k??hG5s^C}Y_%GMs71J/:kэ@n'ƿ#kExn'ƿ#kE|^~Onu;։XLR;#~ "]_E@?Z?44ִEUhBs-ӵ +Pv"QW]-|@_halhۜܠՉAֶ((((((leI\.Uv#/E慫\i^]Żmq{>y/ŖRZ2{\'] _-9<'"xgt@/v^L6g5< [½MK\;B6!(=I@.nPv<BkĚeH;$[&\9䟛LcqމIoi ,A?Q|)׵ablnK4EP ~"}^YelQ 5WNӬ>  hlq@?V珎_?'yG5s^Cw?55K;GZFd3Al\|[?7: ]I%*IPu_t?#q|SXK;lYL9#ё׳xDm{趯+1sGƥ^YIdR8p^y[-h24U{O".:A|[BާGG徧cqg3_OF+lPQ4 u-cZմ}gI..hoPG|FrЮkY!`JO_hu߀GUR(ةT++3wFyg X &KoBO5QEQEQEQEQEQEQ^QX44Q7V^kMLgi?y%'V?֊/ǫlU=[dJ+KOCT=[dZ+KOCT_o (/? zQ cտ6O*>K1'G%'V?Ҋ/ǫlU'%'V?֊/ǫlU=[dJ+ H[iڮ-]K{*D92kS/,5K8W\%̷ RF3@U^W^uO\jב-P=y?{QEQEQEQEQP^XQ%$:{V|]e9ݼ9>n*x{V:|VIzv) 8?8=z`dpx{GAA`r O:z((((( x;Y}[Vg1}}M{_> xsHHJC/9샨xPi^5izeQ}۠Mv?ީ3ia\N > j&b!54UQ@ }xۑB6Am1o])Wk&tvP?]]|5J!x`)+ʘĊNw㯊E巆m"/ट"ր=/?7_FG_@yt2: ( ( ( ( (V{ <~|v,.S M tΛ-p/e6H)u$gKk+Io4i @݋aInki}r3 ($*y,}~W5ZjvsZN*dz:*}wh_mgCꧨ>~Wo-k$1*}3h+}ųi)R0']>?Z߈adZCOz'sƑFƊ*@Wt-OOKkhWjF{Ry5j((oxžn`!?ڶk^1ii6;N&8G72:{y>}=ԆI$i$|ubrj(K#ё5n'(((((( s5s4<ux_eY|(O:Ziӡ^wiv 1 quTPt(2kWυ2˨kvȇ ? ?O@ͽO7<0UQI^W{ Ov%a{I^'7b"'q#RǞzx,Oà-ʀs3EQEyt2:~#ё4QEQEQEQEQEQEx{GAz^/@iu/j^QI9WS7+oH}MH:8qzzkzmزgܛT ֟cs;{X.CKo 9OB[a@HKĶ,levLRPA[U򿁼gyqn%[px}GC澝;=gLl&[\ tq}Gb(Q@Q@WZDG5b,$<ؼi^B|Yps8?>z~l127N(((K#ё5n'(((((($_jbbg۝ x#u? +k?¾>Ds].xCUo:V%6fO.OӃӑ:+(>)-gwcryP# =Ƕ@((jZ]V p$\z9Pj<=vd}2,k1־ L,i'*5]4NRMQFAp7wWtPȟk?G5 _]@GIԬ