Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.
Richard Beban
THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY and PANTOUM UPON BEING DEALT THE FOOL FROM THE TAROT AND THE HAND FROM THE MEXICAN LOTTERY
THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY
epigraph:"To forestall or prevent…hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively." —From The National Security Strategy of The United States of America, September 19, 2002
How convenient to assume our "first strike" won't resemble Mussolini's tender protection of Italy from Ethiopia, Hitler's annexing the Rhineland to rescue Germany, or even Franco's Guernica.
Our first strike to protect Texas oil, the legal rights of Tyco & Enron campaign donors, our time-honored allies the Saudi royal family, our way of life (SUVs & greenhouse gases), won't resemble the Russians' attack on
Chechnya. Pakistan & India won't each assume the same moral right to pre-empt its neighbor by nuking first. We are different. We are America. We export culture. In 1903 Edwin Porter's film, The Great Train Robbery,
shocked the world when a Western rogue pulled his gun & shot straight into the gasping crowd. We know precisely what we're doing. We invented the cowboy movie.
[21 September 2002]
PANTOUM ON BEING DEALT THE FOOL FROM THE TAROT & THE HAND FROM THE MEXICAN LOTTERY
The fool steps off the precipice— the hand, la mano, can't make him stop. In a cartoon world, he floats without falling; faith is all we have to hold us up.
The hand, la mano, can't make him stop despite the authority in its voice. Faith is all we have to hold us up in a world of fools & sleight-of hand.
Despite the authority in its voice, the church stands ragged with its begging bowl. In a world of fools & sleight-of hand the old magic wanes & drains out of the land.
The church stands ragged with its begging bowl & the emperor poses without his clothes; the old magic wanes & drains out of the land, the fool's faith is more than we can stand.
& the emperor poses without his clothes as his cabinet, too, gapes naked. The fool's faith is more than we can stand, but where is the hand that can make him stop?
As his cabinet, too, gapes naked in a cartoon world, he floats without falling. But where is the hand that can make him stop? The fool steps off the precipice.
