Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.
Jean Gerard
94 years old
retired college English teacher now writing full time
Dreams of my Daughters
If I were the Palestinian gynecologist whose two daughters and niece were slaughtered by an Israeli bomb in Gaza recently, this would be
my way of telling you of suffering outraged. What did these beautiful girls do to harm Israel? All innocent. All on the thin edge of the moment,
opening their future, meeting life more than halfway, in love with hope, dreaming of becoming a doctor, a teacher, a musician. Here
on this very splash of blood lie torn notebooks, a comb, a towel and a kerchief to cover an all-too-fragile brain-case.
God protect them in heaven as I could not protect them in hell. Give me the strength to believe -- not in peace, for that word has now
lost all its meaning -- but that a more human race will spring from the loins of other girls by some miracle salvaged
from such ruinous assaults, such soul-consuming hatreds. My lovely girls are gone. Can I revive my will to trust once more?
(In honor of Dr. Ezeldeen Abu Al-Aish)
CACOPHONY IN C# MINOR
CACOPHONY IN C# MINOR
Remember poetry -- if you are older than fifty and the highwayman came riding up to the old inn door and made elegant rhymes out of words like Alcibiades and Xanadu
and the chambered nautilus shimmered in her pink tights, aspiring to sail the seas, opening to the west wind, outsourcing beauty, and not one caesura to stop the mortgaging of more stately mansions.
Farewell, delightful Delilah of the dark eyes and the razor. Cut Salome, and Xanadu. too. Holy moley! There’s the thought police following us in their think-thank-thunk tank writing down names! Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Kaboooooom! Will the curtain ever go down on the Theater of War?
PAVANE FOR A DEAD PRISONER
PAVANE FOR A DEAD PRISONER Come on, wake up, goddammit! I didn’t mean for you to die on me. We got no information yet. Why didn’t you speak up, man, so we could stop? Doncha know you died for nothing, you idiot! We gave you every chance, How long were here in this stinking cell, day and night, year after year -- you and your praying,listening,hoping the end was just around the corner of the next hallway where someone was waiting for you but you forgot who it was because you couldn’t see hear think sleep.
Tell me, now, why you wouldn’t tell me who what where when how?
Listen to me, man. I didn’t want you to die on me! I was even beginning to like you.
LULLABY FOR A HAPPY LITTLE CHRISTMAS
(a more or less found poem for a more or less lost soul)
Rock-a-bye baby belly-down On the living-room rug, legs from the knees kicking the air as you manipulate the controls of your
new digital all-the-rage game “Waterboarding-house.” Don’t think. It’s about reaction! Hone your gear! Blow your mind! Response is where it’s at!
This is the fastest-moving revolutionary targeting system yet produced. Live dogs! Realistic Islamofascists!
Open-ended game play! Challenging, eye-ball snatching! Mixes fun with brutality! Heads up, man! Here’s one comin’ at you compliments of a little digital geek in Outer Mongolia! ho! ho! ho!
THE SWING OF THINGS
I want to escape from this world but I don’t want to die to do it.
When I am awake I learn much that I would rather not know
and what always gets my attention is that it’s all over again, the replay,
the droning of wars that run into each other, chasing their expensive tails
like moth-eaten dinosaurs from central casting, following some computer’s orders: Come on,
you guys! Get with the program! Watch for your cue, or you will end up
in some stinking prison on a godforsaken golf course somewhere and no one looking.
Get up! Sit down! Eat a peach! Don’t talk! Listen to the music of the spheres
of influence jazzing it up in Hollywood, New Orleans, Vegas and Kansas City,
land of the free, home of the brave but melancholy babies whose only hope
is to become the Bards of Podunk and retire to a fucked-up Shangri-La on the edge of the
Dalai Llama’s . . . Swi-i-i-sssssh! Ha, ha! Double-ollied that time!
What a ride – and nobody watching? Shit! Scotland’s burning, and not a white fireman in sight!
PART OF THE MODERN LEXICON*
*the title comes from a Raytheon ad for AUVs
See Raytheon fly. See Ratheon's profits fly. See Dick and Jane fly UAVs made by Raytheon.
I can see Dick and Jane. They are flying UAVs. Can you see Dick and Jane, too?
Yes, I can see them. They are flying unmanned aerial vehicles. Do you know what unmanned aerial vehicles are?
Yes, I know. They are for killing people without getting killed. That's good, isn't it? Good for Dick and Jane but what about others?
Oh, Dick and Jane don't really kill people. How come? They are too far away. They can't even see any killed people. They just aim the vehicles in the right direction.
How do they do that? By computer, of course. Gee, you don't know anything! Well, where are they then, when they aim the vehicles? They are safe at home in Kansas.
That's where Dorothy lived, isn't it? Dorothy who? The girl who went to see the Wizard of Oz. Gee! How old are you anyway? She died a long time ago.
Look. See Dick and Jane sitting in their office. But don't they care if they kill people? No, they have been trained not to care.
But can that really happen? Yes, it is happening every day.
How do they get trained? They are taught to project force without pro- jecting vulnerability.
You're kidding me! No, I'm not. Yes, you are! I know you are! That can't really happen to Dick and Jane!
That's what you think. You're stupid. You don't know anything.
I'm gonna tell Mom on you. Go ahead. See if I care!
A PROPER CEREMONY
"Ecoterrorists" climbed and dangled from a cliff. Instead of blasting out noses, eye-sockets and chins
of presidents who had little respect for indigenity, they rapelled to a slippery ledge, danced on the wind
beside Lincoln's ear and unfurled a banner for earth. The shrouded heads of three of the Lakota Grandfathers
who remain unscathed, nodded in surprise, roused as they were from a sound sleep. "Tan yan yahi lo!" Wind spoke.
Threatening to blow free, the banner read: "Americans honor Leaders, not Politicians." Would that it were true!
Can this President forget politicians and lobbyists? Remember slavery, broken treaties, homeless children?
Our fruitless wars of empire, and the silent dead? The proud flight of eagles? The urgency of love and care?
The melting of ice islands in the sun?
THINGS WE TELL OUR EYEBALLS
THINGS WE TELL OUR EYEBALLS
Microscopes are for inspecting the infinitesimal. Telescopes expose Colossus bit by bit, but we avert our ordinary eyeballs to protect us from a universe of pain within plain sight.
Lacking special training, we can do little about cells. We are not called upon to manage the fortunate stars. Escape is easy. Let others do manipulations, visits, tabulate, fund inquiries, make decisions.
Their esoteric knowledge is beyond our ken. We can escape concern and feel no guilt. We are not scholars, so.... Fill in the dots. Let others do what they dangerously will.
Thus we become callous of heart,self-immunized, claim habits of innocence, shirk duty’s nag while tens of thousands fall in useless wars or starve, or are imprisoned without trial.
We turn away from caskets, rapes and chains and pray to be locked up behind closed eyes.
Note: The title comes from an online essay by David K. Thomson,“How Not to See,” at Counterpunch.org, 7/19/09
DEFRAGGING AFGHANISTAN
Take Showkar Kariz for example. It's thirty miles northeast of Kandahar as the crow flies over Mohammed Qasim's head. He's the only remaining inhabitant now. He looks up into a cloudless sky.
"There's no Al Quaeda here," says he. "I had just dug out a child when the second strike flew over. That time they got him!" He squints in the sun, rubs his eyes. "These are war crimes," he says. Silence. Then: "Guess who came by last week, and for what? Americans," he says. He's tired. His voice shakes. "They buried a piece of the World Trade Center here," he says, "and took a piece of our mosque back to New York." He points to a small mound beside a ruined wall, sifts a handful of dust through his fingers.
THE LAND OF SHADOWS
THE LAND OF SHADOWS
Written upon Viewing “Obama’s War” (the Frontline video)
In the land of shadows, smoke and sand Let us pray Where the gods are ages old, cracked and shaking Let us pray.
Give me your hand and I will help you up. But this is Quetta and I dare not trust you for tomorrow Let us pray
Watch the feet. They tell the story tramping over empty roads or in the shade of stone cliffs rising. Let us pray
They came and burned the market. Who? The land here opens to a hollow sky and dust. Small arms fire from a distance. Once my son. Now fire behind my back and let us pray.
Where? Where? Over there! Where you are, over here? No, there! Where did you go? Once you were here Let us pray.
Why in hell don’t you speak English so I can understand? I want to say we came to help you. I’m your friend. What is the word? Now let us pray.
We’re here to help, I said, to help! But we have nothing! Why did you come? Why don’t you go? All politics is local. I here. You there. Let us pray.
PEACE BE UPON ME -- 2009 C.E.
PEACE BE UPON ME – 2007 C..E.
Now I ask to be taken to a place where the stones still speak.
Alolihala!
In the middle of a desert under the midpoint of the sky where turns the axis of worlds,
there to find
An ancient tomb full of utterances. “Sing! Dance! Kiss my face!”
Then a springof magic water will appear before me and the blood-thirst of the Sons of Abraham
will be slaked, secretly, in the soul-dark chambers of my heart where the God of Gods
Alolihala!
awaits me. I will open my arms, greet Him, and this Friend of Night and Day
will hold me close, this Lover who dies without my seeking.
