Caught in the Act in Iraq*
Take the smart cell phone and punch up hell
In the new republic where they proudly voted
With their inked hands they grab around rocks
To bash red the helpless young woman
In her royal blue skirt and white blouse.
Writhing alone, she lays on the old ground,
Yet ages ago one son of man stooped
And wrote in the desert sand the words
Of judgment that only he who is faultless
May cast the first stone to the ground's abyss;
But now smartly dressed males lean extending
Their mobile phones to catch the violent action next
To police officers who stand 'idol' at this judgment
In their black U.S. vests proofed from bullets,
Next to the sleek SUV's parked by the worship center;
Watching their huge crowd—old and young males
Pounding the helpless girl to death with large stones
Because she was seen strolling in conversation
With a young man of the town near the river
From a different ancient religion, "so it goats.' *
Thus this girl of 17 is bloodied to death.
And her life cries out against 'publican' Iraq
Where the handwriting darkens the wall
Of these savage males full of ruthless sin.
Foolish men of the present dominion,
Weep like he of old so much wiser
Who removed all the stones from men.
*CNN news and John 8: 1-11
References to Vonnegut, Islam, and Judaism
- Daniel E. Wilcox
(added 12.01.09)
The Wind Blew Away the Young
(Dedicated to the memory of Kurt Vonnegut)
Down the fallen flamed millenniums
The endless, obscene burnings
Of the innocent, the kind, the young;
Into the carnaged abyss of the sinking goddess' son
Emperor Hirohito, the Incarnate daemon struts,
Safe and secure (with his war-lording generals)
In their godless ease, this son not dying until
Later in a cancerous hell of '89, long after
The 300,000 'children' of Nanking bled
Through eternity in the burning breeze--
The helled wind blew away the young sons;
As did General LeMay in the nighttime hail marying
Of incendiary clusters, magnesium so white and cancered,
The napalm carpet-bombing of half a million civilians
Into twisting, torched fiery sacrifices,
Far more Molochian than any other war officer,
Burning excess in 6 'Baalful' hours than any ever,
From the glowing end of his clenched cigar,
The devil's phallus, loaded awards, medaled to his grill
Piled high the burned flesh of the armless ones--
The helled wind blew away the young sons,
Including "Little Boy" who fire-wiped the eyes
Of the thousands of children, dropping them
Like small millstones to Gehenna’s depth
Until their irises hissed, melted, and ran down
Their flamed faces next to where their immaculate
Mothers’ flesh encrusted the fired town walls thanks
To Officer Tibbets the superfortress flyer out of the Pit
Stating, “Hell yeah, I’d do it again," the infernal total war lie,
Loaded with cigars in shirt pockets and plane holds
Out-Heroding Judah's king, but Rachel weeps--
The helled wind blew away the young sons.
Yet now the Yanks castigate Palestine's killers
When they suicide bomb a dozen or more citizens
Who have blatantly stolen their life and land,
But every killer’s a terrorist in sheepskin,
Vile the heart of the accusers who excuse
The slaughter of the civilians without arms--
The helled wind blew away the young sons.
Against the rising demonic sun ship and plane
Medal of Honor winners Gilmore and Doss
Fought with courage, the former in his deadly sub
The latter with his Bible and bandages, all alone
Rescuing 69 wounded, abandoned Americans
Off a sheer cliff under relentless machine-gun fire
Without killing a Nippon's son or child or babe--
The helled wind blew away the young sons.
Vonnegut, the third of these valorous ones
Warrior of honor who sought the right,
Before he died recently as it always goes
When he cursed the obscenity of total war
For its helled wind blows away the young,
The old, the sincere, the loving, the kind,
The patient and the wise as did it once
When the world was cruelly young,
Descending into the helled wind--
Killing an only beloved dear son.
*Howard Gilmore, sub commander who, when wounded while in up in the conning tower by a Japanese arms ship, told his crew to close the hatch and take her down. He died bleeding in the salt sea so that many Americans including his crew could live free.
Desmond Doss refused a war deferment, yet refused to pick up a rifle, and later rescued the commanding officer who had tried to kick him out of the army. Later when Doss was wounded, he saw another soldier more wounded than him and insisted the stretcher-bearers set him down and take the other soldier. He spent two years in the hospital after the war ended. The soldiers who had ridiculed him later searched the battlefield for his lost Bible. He came to save lives not to kill the innocent or even the guilty.
(U.S. News and World Report)
- Daniel E. Wilcox
(featured in the poetry forum 12.01.09)
after the loss
all my nerves torn loose
in the streets dancing jangles
staccatoed electric wires
ripped loose from my telephone
souled lightning dangerous night
- Daniel E. Wilcox
(added 11.04.08)
The Slowness of Danger
He eased the old clunker
Of a Ford over to the tarred shoulder,
Where I stood thumbing west out of Bozeman;
I slung my worn rucksack
Into the back seat and plopped down
To my regret as I discerned too late
The plump driver was long-gone plastered,
Down with more than a 12-pack
All the way but not through the liver.
“I know I’ve had a few,” he drawled,
“But I’m the most careful of drivers.”
Then he slowed out onto the freeway,
Gas-pedaling up to 35 miles per hour,
While rushing vehicles swerved around
Past his slug of a sedan on the blacktop;
He gave new meaning and belied
The phrase about haste makes…
- Daniel E. Wilcox
(added 11.04.08)
The Mythic Mask
The vast kaleidoscoped cosmos
On black velvet background
Galactic star swirls,
One great masked Chagall
Above us in infinite light years,
Visioning vivid rose and royal blue,
We cover the earth,
Weeping colors of bowed rain
In this troubled world’s lastness,
From the very beforeness,
Out from
The great cosmic Blast,
A hooded violet trope
That hurtled
Us into the question
Before the asking;
Our distraught masks
Cascading
Yes, we turn our
Stained-glassed faces
Away from the harshness
Of wintered survival rage
To stare at the flaming sun,
Ruby, emerald, and sapphire
Gleaming through,
Not mindfully blind
Behind metaphor’s
Translucent veil,
Seeing the True Face,
Ever-becoming visually real.
One finally white endless strobe
Of the brightness of becoming,
Unlimited strophe of the Masque
Of all Dancing.
- Daniel E. Wilcox
(added 11.04.08)
Research Filing Cabinets
The pages of history torn loose and filed
In manila folders away in the grey cabinet,
Letters’ ink still darkening my busy fingers
Of too many newspaper yesterdays;
Printed faces in strident or friendly poses,
Even curvaceous bodies that now slowly molder
Under the bright sheen of deep metal caskets
Yesterday’s news-dirt buried behind steel,
While their data and dotted images hang
There incased in immaculate office rooms
Waiting for the hand of future’s need,
Living a virtual afterlife.
- Daniel E. Wilcox
(added 10.25.08) |
