The DU (Political) Poetry Thread!

[QC]

Do you know of a poem that seems especially relevant right now? Share it here!

Here's one I have especially liked for years, but George Bush's war has made it very real once again.

Base Details
Siegfried Sassoon

IF I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. ‘Poor young chap,’
I’d say—‘I used to know his father well;
Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.’
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed.

on edit: added "(Political)" to title.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

1. James Kavenaugh

There are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves



There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who prey upon them with IBM eyes
And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.
There are men too gentle for a savage world
Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws
And murder them for a merchant's profit and gain.
There are men too gentle for a corporate world
Who dream instead of candied apples and ferris wheels
And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who devour them with eager appetite and search
For other men to prey upon and suck their childhood dry.
There are men too gentle for an accountant's world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove.
Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant's world,
Unless they have a gentle one to love.

[QC]

4. That's very powerful.

Never read it before. Should I look for more of his work?

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

8. I have enjoyed several of his poems. n/t

[rwenos]

2. How Sweet and Proper It is

Wilfred Owen
Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

*******************

Translation of "the old lie":

"How sweet and proper it is
to die for one's country."

As true in 2005 as it was in 1918.

[QC]

3. Excellent choice!

That's a favorite--I always find a way to work it into a class.

[blonndee]

5. Me too! It's actually in my students' Comp II textbook on argument. nt

[rwenos]

6. Molto grazie

And I, into a closing argument.

[proud patriot]

7. Here's one I wrote

POETIC EXTINCTION...desperate grasping , barely holding/unexplained convulsions of logic/Lashing out fierce screams of blame/thinking of survival Wailing Flailing/lying dealing death to survive/Screams , Pain , hate, agony , fear oh yes FEAR/Eating one's own, you know that kind of Fear The fear of nightmares/Camouflage it , hide behind it , meta morph it/puffing plumage raising hackles loudly barking changing colors/altering strategies smokescreens of stench/hungry predators, following the trail , searching/weakened hiding running Scared/hoping hoping predators circling/focused dedicated hungry/backed into a corner/Cowering Sniveling Crying ,THE EXTINCTION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY: by Proud Patriot

I actually envision it expanded and put to music

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

9. Poetry From Another Dimension Where Sylvia and Adrienne Have Testes

Like the Hindenburg you float
about my psyche, waiting for saint Elmo
to ignite your hydrogen temper.
"Oh my God! I can't believe it! Oh my God!
She's Burning...They're fallinq from the sky."

Oh, Mother Earth your teat was sweet,
and filled for just a year.
Then quickly sagged as I filled up,
taking away the nourishments of love
you spat about in faerie tales.

She dog, she dog. You
loathsome Delilah, snipping at my hair.
Sphinx-like smugness in your rigor.
Morte, morte, morte.
You bleed me cause you do.

You know you hold your candles well,
you're brass to wax and string
which burns brightly
if not briefly. But you know there's other candles.
You make them all yourself.

I am pliable like beeswax,
inspired by a queen,
to stand and show red hourglass
waiting yet to mate...
devoured when the act is done.

Down, down, down,
the wilted carcass slips,
to lie among the wreckage,
to die among the wreckage,
as mantis-like, you prey for more

Holding scissors, lower still.
Teasing in your voice, making up
for when the boys tied June bugs
to the strings of springtimes past.
"Vasectomy is vengeance, Dear, hold your breath
Don't scream."

You genetic Judas goat of silk-
lined wetness to entice,
your pheromone scent and lotus petals...
You're Medea with a knife.
And I'm drawn like a fly to sugared glue

To land and eat a final meal
of sugared glue.
Of sugared glue.
You are Hitler,
I am Jew.
Without Judea.



Oh, but you still blow me
away. Though I've mandrake root and
belladonna, your witchcraft still gets through
like winter wind, it catches up my pant-leg.
Chilling to the bone.

You stand about, a loaded gun,
with a chambered bullet, me.
waiting to discharge that load,
into my heart goes me. Powered
by your powder. Your rouge, your oils, your cream,

You say that I'm a vampire,
feeding on your blood. But blood is bait,
and bait is blood, waiting to congeal
and crust...over the festering sore
you see as me.

Go see a doctor! Get it fixed!
your plumbing's all fucked up!
I'm not your tool, I'm still my own.
I won't share my guilt with you.
You're the Hindenburg of guilt and you think it's just gas.


End

[QC]

10. Here's one not overtly political but definitely concerned with class,

which is now America's most taboo political issue.

Plus it deals with high school football and is just a damn good poem.

Autumn Begins In Martins Ferry, Ohio
James Wright

In the Shreve High football stadium,
I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
Dreaming of heroes.

All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
Their women cluck like starved pullets,
Dying for love.

Therefore,
Their sons grow suicidally beautiful
At the beginning of October,
And gallop terribly against each other's bodies.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

11. EUFALA 1

Red woolen cap
with ragged pulls and tears smells of rain,
smeared with shit.

Matted hair, kinky, defying any comb,
smelling of mildew.
And occasionally drops,
in clandestine clumps.
And is never really missed

Her face is war torn wrinkles, mapping roads
from painful yesterdays to a numb today,
taking a reader deeper
than one would ever want to go.
Her eye-whites are yellow, with
a crusted yellow mucous that
cakes where sunshine strikes.
The amber crystals meet with
white crusted snot on an upper lip
over a permanent grin
of missing teeth and pyorrhea.
A broken nose
from a first husband, not centered.
smells the stench though.

Her shoulders curled
for fear and wear,
covered by salvation
army sweaters and
coat that once covered
the shoulders of women that wore Este Lauder.
now smelling
like the privates festering beneath skirt
and pants.
Not washed for months.
Legs shake and warp
the diet takes its toll.
And is turning her bones
into memories.

She sits in the park
in front of the swings
watching the children play,
and imagines a time
when her father would push (push)
her, oh, so high.
His strong hands (hands)
Would catch her (catch her)
slim waist, and push again
(not again).

And in her mind,
the swing would fly back again, to earth,
and start a return to sky, catching her father's
head with the rusty edge,
driving deep into his brain, smashing hard,
letting out the countless years of pain.
They spiral out, then cascade,
pouring out like springtime rain,
(faeries dancinq in delight,
Catchinq bits of brain in buttercups,
offerinq all to those who thirst)
touching everything,
but covering nothing.



EUFALA 2

You get used to pain.
And happiness belongs to the beholder.

syphilis takes a nibble.
a brain cell here and there.
Destroying hope and wonderment
withdrawing things that care.

Synaptic functions,
once quick, once true,
now kindly ignore
any darkened view.

Inurement to Reality gives joy.



Eufala 3

Corn, corn, cornucopious
dumpsters on the street
wafting scents of potato and roast
wet dreams of fresh cooked meat.

[Warren DeMontague]

12. By that world renowned poet, Jimmy Cliff

Well they tell me of a pie up in the sky
Waiting for me when I die
But between the day you're born and when you die
They never seem to hear even your cry

So as sure as the sun will shine
I'm gonna get my share now of what's mine
And then the harder they come the harder they'll fall, one and all
Ooh the harder they come the harder they'll fall, one and all

Well the officers are trying to keep me down
Trying to drive me underground
And they think that they have got the battle won
I say forgive them Lord, they know not what they've done

ooh yeah oh yeah woh yeah ooooh

And I keep on fighting for the things I want
Though I know that when you're dead you can't
But I'd rather be a free man in my grave
Than living as a puppet or a slave

Yeah, the harder they come, the harder they'll fall one and all
What I say now, what I say now, awww
What I say now, what I say one time
The harder they come the harder they'll fall one and all
Ooh the harder they come the harder they'll fall one and all

[Sleepless In NY]

14. Epitaph on a Tyrant by W. H. Auden

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

[QC]

13. e e cummings - i sing of Olaf glad and big

i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelov'd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments--
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
"I will not kiss your fucking flag"

straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)

but--though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat--
Olaf(upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat"

our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died

Christ(of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.

[marions ghost]

26. good one QC

:thumbsup:

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

15. Found another...

3rd Shift

They are the silent.
Reticent cogs, silent mules,
tacit army-

Docile drawing force that dreams
of sex and pick-up trucks.
Of paying next month's rent.
Of six packs in the dust.

strong backs, long backs
arms and legs and hands,
they facilitate facility
denying lust that calls...

"Hallelujah, hallelujah,"
calling through
the hallowed halls,

We're only half past
destitute.
They have us by the balls!

The workers of America
struggle to survive
as they manufacture widgets
never working nine to five

like the bankers and the lawyers
insurance folk and brokers
who turn a tidy profit
juggling money, choking smokers.

The reality of life for these,
the masses building life
for those, consumptuous bleeding
breeding grogs who love the mighty widget’s

lure is fucking in the moonlight
hidden by the Chevy's dash
while dreaming soporific dreams
of bringing home the cash.

End



And from another war by a similar President:



'Twas the Night Before Christmas '89 in Panama

Twas five days before Christmas
when all through the land,
fingers were itchy, and called for a stand.
The C-41's were loaded with care,
In hopes Noriega would be blind to this dare.

"A surgical strike would work fine and be quick."
said an advisor who briefly felt sick.
"Delta force could be in and out in a blink!"
Said another advisor as he mixed a drink.
"But the economy sucks, and we need a war!"
Cried Danny with glee as he entered the door.
"And with abortion out, there's too many folks,
so let's have a war, where are the Cokes?"
So George waved his hands in a mystical fashion,
and looked up from his desk with unusual passion,
"Peace doesn't work for corporate powers,
there's no profit in having Lockheed grow flowers.
Hughes stock has been dropping like a lead ball,
Let Manuel know we're coming,
Now dash away all!"

Panamanian Children
were snug in their beds,
Feliz Navidad played in their heads.
When up in the sky there arose such a clatter,
Children leapt from their beds,
when windows started to shatter.
Up to the mountains Manuel flew like a flash,
While the U.S. forces turned his HQ into trash.

The flash of the flares on the newfallen dead,
gave the luster of midday to pools of new red.
When what to wondering eyes did appear,
20,000 young troops armed with God and fresh fear
With a leader who slept, miles from the push,
a point of light by the name of George Bush.

More Rapid than eagles his Hugheys they came,
soundly thrashing the bad guys, playing their game.
While back in a hotel where civilians did stay,
protection was naught, ignored in this fray,
to protect Americans was the reason it's said,
but hundreds were wounded, nineteen were dead.

Manuel thumbed his nose at a great world power
he outsmarted George Bush in his finest hour.
So George figured out he couldn't catch this man
and put a price on his head, maybe someone else can.

So while people here still live in the street,
George spent our money with a lively beat
for nothing more than an unsuccessful fight
as he was heard to exclaim:
"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

Why did George hunt this rat with a gun?
I know that a trap would not be as much fun,
or quite as fast, or show off his toys,
but what about those nineteen young boys?
Did they have time to question other available ways,
that would not have them missing their last Christmas by days.

Please don't tell him that there are drug dealers in Atlanta.
I live here, and don't want to be invaded.

[ShockediSay]

16. Off the top of my head - Bob Dylan - probably too obvious

Masters of War

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

http://bobdylan.com/songs/masters.html

......................................

IT'S ALRIGHT, MA (I'm Only Bleeding)

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.


http://bobdylan.com/songs/itsalright.html

[texpatriot2004]

17. Let America be America again by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

[texpatriot2004]

18. Obliviously on he sails by Calvin Trillin would be a good one

but I can't find a link to the poem and I don't have the book.

[GreenPoet64]

19. This one has left an impression on me . . .

From "The Sun" Magazine's March issue:
A poem by Tony Hoagland

America

Then one of the students with blue hair and a tongue stud
Says that America is for him a maximum-security prison

Whose walls are made of RadioShacks and Burger Kings, and MTV episodes
Where you can't tell the show from the commercials,

And even as I consider how to express how full of shit I think he is,
He says that even when he's driving to the mall in his Isuzu

Trooper with a gang of his friends, letting rap music pour over them
Like a boiling Jacuzzi full of ball-peen hammers, even then he feels

Buried alive, captured and suffocated in the folds
Of the thick satin quilt of America

And I wonder if this is a legitimate category of pain,
Or whether he is just spin-doctoring a better grade,

And then I remember that when I stabbed my father in the dream last night,
It was not blood but money

That gushed out of him, bright green hundred-dollar bills
Spilling from his wounds, and -- this is the weird part -- ,

He gasped "Thank God -- those Ben Franklins were
Clogging up my heart --

And so I perish happily,
Freed from that which kept me from my liberty" --,

Which is when I knew it was a dream, since my dad
Would never speak in rrhymed couplets,

And I look at the student with his acne and cellphone and phony ghetto clothes
And I think, "I am asleep in America too,

And I don't know how to wake myself either,"
And I remember what Marx said near the end of his life:

"I was listening to the cries of the past,
When I should have been listening to the cries of the future."

But how could he have imagined 100 channels of 24-hour cable
Or what kind of nightmare it might be

When each day you watch rivers of bright merchandise run past you
And you are floating in your pleasure boat upon this river

Even while others are drowning underneath you
And you see their faces twisting in the surface of the waters

And yet it seems to be your own hand
Which turns the volume higher?

[BeTheChange]

20. A couple..

a prayer band
by Suheir Hammad - http://www.suheirhammad.com


every thing

you ever paid for
you ever worked on
you ever received

every thing

you ever gave away
you ever held on to
you ever forgot about

every single thing is one
of every single thing and all
things are gone

every thing i can think to do
to say i feel
is buoyant

every thing is below water
every thing is eroding
every thing is hungry

there is no thing to eat
there is water every where
and there is no thing clean to drink

the children aren’t talking

the nurses have stopped believing
anyone is coming for us

the parish fire chief will never again tell anyone that help is
coming

now is the time of rags
now is the indigo of loss
now is the need for cavalry

.....new orleans
i fell in love with your fine ass poor boys sweating frying
catfish blackened life thick women glossy seasoning bourbon
indians beads grit history of races
and losers who still won

.....new orleans
i dreamt of living lush within your shuttered eyes
a closet of yellow dresses a breeze on my neck
writing poems for do right men and a daughter of refugees

i have known of displacement
and the tides pulling every thing
that could not be carried within
and some of that too

a jamaican man sings
those who can afford to run will run
what about those who can’t
they will have to stay

end of the month tropical depression turned storm

someone whose beloved has drowned
knows what water can do
what water will do to once animated things

a new orleans man pleads
we have to steal from each other to eat
another gun in hand says we will protect what we have
what belongs to us

i have known of fleeing desperate
with children on hips in arms on backs
of house keys strung on necks
of water weighed shoes
disintegrated official papers
leases certificates births deaths taxes

i have known of high ways which lead nowhere
of aches in teeth in heads in hands tied

i have known of women raped by strangers by neighbors
of a hunger in human

i have known of promises to return
to where you come from
but first any bus going any where

tonight the tigris and the mississippi moan for each other as sisters
full of unnatural things
flooded with predators and prayers

all language bankrupt

how long before hope begins to eat itself?
how many flags must be waved?
when does a man let go of his wife’s hand in order to hold his child?

who says this is not the america they know?

what america do they know?

were the poor people so poor they could not be seen?

were the black people so many they could not be counted?

this is not a charge
this is a conviction

if death levels us all
then life plays favorites

and life it seems is constructed
of budgets contracts deployments of wards and automobiles of superstition and tourism and gasoline but mostly insurance

and insurance it seems is only bought
and only with what cannot be carried within
and some of that too

a city of slave bricked streets
a city of chapel rooms
a city of haints

a crescent city

where will the jazz funeral be held?

when will the children talk?

tonight it is the dead
and dying who are left
and those who would rather not
promise themselves they will return

they will be there
after everything is gone
and when the saints come
marching like spring
to save us all

Waiting for the Marines
Nth Position ( http://www.nthposition.com/100poets.pdf)
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 leukæmia 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.

[texpatriot2004]

21. This one touched my soul and made me cry

a prayer band
by Suheir Hammad

a profound line from it

"all language bankrupt"

[BeTheChange]

23. I like the stanza before:

tonight the tigris and the mississippi moan for each other as sisters
full of unnatural things
flooded with predators and prayers



Suheir Hammad is a powerful poet. I thank God that there are poets still speaking truth to power.

[elehhhhna]

25. IMO this one can't be topped:

The Second Coming -- W. B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.


Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[texpatriot2004]

28. I ran across this one last night. nm

[GreenPoet64]

24. Wow . . . thank you for sharing these! n/t

[texpatriot2004]

27. This one is incredible.

a prayer band
by Suheir Hammad - http://www.suheirhammad.com


every thing

you ever paid for
you ever worked on
you ever received

every thing

you ever gave away
you ever held on to
you ever forgot about

every single thing is one
of every single thing and all
things are gone

every thing i can think to do
to say i feel
is buoyant

every thing is below water
every thing is eroding
every thing is hungry

there is no thing to eat
there is water every where
and there is no thing clean to drink

the children aren’t talking

the nurses have stopped believing
anyone is coming for us

the parish fire chief will never again tell anyone that help is
coming

now is the time of rags
now is the indigo of loss
now is the need for cavalry

.....new orleans
i fell in love with your fine ass poor boys sweating frying
catfish blackened life thick women glossy seasoning bourbon
indians beads grit history of races
and losers who still won

.....new orleans
i dreamt of living lush within your shuttered eyes
a closet of yellow dresses a breeze on my neck
writing poems for do right men and a daughter of refugees

i have known of displacement
and the tides pulling every thing
that could not be carried within
and some of that too

a jamaican man sings
those who can afford to run will run
what about those who can’t
they will have to stay

end of the month tropical depression turned storm

someone whose beloved has drowned
knows what water can do
what water will do to once animated things

a new orleans man pleads
we have to steal from each other to eat
another gun in hand says we will protect what we have
what belongs to us

i have known of fleeing desperate
with children on hips in arms on backs
of house keys strung on necks
of water weighed shoes
disintegrated official papers
leases certificates births deaths taxes

i have known of high ways which lead nowhere
of aches in teeth in heads in hands tied

i have known of women raped by strangers by neighbors
of a hunger in human

i have known of promises to return
to where you come from
but first any bus going any where

tonight the tigris and the mississippi moan for each other as sisters
full of unnatural things
flooded with predators and prayers

all language bankrupt

how long before hope begins to eat itself?
how many flags must be waved?
when does a man let go of his wife’s hand in order to hold his child?

who says this is not the america they know?

what america do they know?

were the poor people so poor they could not be seen?

were the black people so many they could not be counted?

this is not a charge
this is a conviction

if death levels us all
then life plays favorites

and life it seems is constructed
of budgets contracts deployments of wards and automobiles of superstition and tourism and gasoline but mostly insurance

and insurance it seems is only bought
and only with what cannot be carried within
and some of that too

a city of slave bricked streets
a city of chapel rooms
a city of haints

a crescent city

where will the jazz funeral be held?

when will the children talk?

tonight it is the dead
and dying who are left
and those who would rather not
promise themselves they will return

they will be there
after everything is gone
and when the saints come
marching like spring
to save us all

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

22. kick for peace:

http://www.knology.net/~rareandfirsts/inspiteofourselves.mp3

[Cats Against Frist]

29. Howe, cummings, Ginsburg

9-11-01 Fanny Howe





The first person is an existentialist

Like trash in the groin of the sand dunes
Like a brown cardboard home beside the dam

Like seeing like things the same
Between deserts or Mount St. Helen’s

An earthquake a turret with arms and legs
The second person is the beloved

Like winners taking the hit
Like looking down on Utah as if

It was Saudi Arabia and the Caspian Sea
Like war-planes out of Miramar

Like a split cult a jolt of coke New York
Like Mexico in its deep beige couplets

Like this, like that. . . like call us all It,
Thou It. “Sky to Spirit! Call us all It!”

The third person is a materialist.

________________________________________________________________


e.e. cummings - next to of course god america i... (III)

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water


____________________________________________________________

America -- "Allen Ginsburg"

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January
17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I
need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not
the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back
it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical
joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday
somebody goes on trial for murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid
I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses
in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle
Max after he came over from Russia.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by
Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner
candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Business-
men are serious. Movie producers are serious.
Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of
marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable
private literature that goes 1400 miles an hour
and twenty-five-thousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of
underprivileged who live in my flowerpots
under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers
is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that
I'm a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly
mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as
individual as his automobiles more so they're
all different sexes.
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500
down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Com-
munist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a
handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and
sentimental about the workers it was all so sin-
cere you have no idea what a good thing the
party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand
old man a real mensch Mother Bloor made me
cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody
must have been a spy.
America you don't really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen.
And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power
mad. She wants to take our cars from out our
garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers'
Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia.
Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta-
tions.
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read.
Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us
all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in
the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes
in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and
psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

[Hidden Stillness]

30. "Bushie's Little Christmas New Year"--(original)

I apologize if anyone has read this already; I wrote this poem last Christmas-New Year's time, thereabouts, then when I joined Democratic Underground, it was my first post. Totally ignored, so I don't know if anybody read it. This just about sums up my impression of the devil Bush.


"Bushie's Little Christmas New Year"


So we welcome the new, with the same old fear,
Because of course, Bush is still here.
We live in a dream world, led by a fake,
Are we all hypnotized; not awake?

-----------------------

Santa brought Bush a gift, as you know;
Stole another one--two in a row!
Republicans brimming with gifts, like elves,
Ohio vote numbers they made up themselves.

So now, regardless, the deed was done,
The media handled, the election "won";
But for every promise Bush fails to keep
The people now just fall asleep.

A while ago, at any rate,
A crisis was coming, and it would be great;
"Where is Bush?" they were heard to say,
"On vacation--we like it that way."

An army of the poor had come to call
Up to the White House and straight down the hall;
They asked what became of that campaign vow:
"Where are your Christian morals now?"

Bush's staff thought they were servants or peons,
They hadn't talked to their like in eons:
"What do I say?" one of them fretted,
"These aren't contributors; who had them vetted?"

The people told of their terrible plight,
Family farms destitute, urban blight;
The old now threatened, the young who never had,
"For us, your economy is always bad."

"We are not helped by stocks, up or down,
"The words 'tort reform' are the words of a clown;
"Tax cuts won't help us, subsidies too,
"Because we have nothing, and they all go to you."

Their accusations, their cries for relief,
Began to annoy the Repub Corporate Chief.
"These people were fun when they cheered me on cue,
"But now the servants tell ME what to do??"

Finally, Rich Boy had had quite enough,
"You welfare queens think you have it tough?"
"You try to embarrass me with all these displays,
"Why don't you turn in your 401Ks?"

"If you have these problems, sell off your yachts,
"You think you have problems--I have lots."
Then Repubs started pushing them all out the door;
These little peons were not fun anymore.

"What do the poor know about God's will?
"Whatever they want, I want to kill."
None understood what was the fuss,
"You claim you want Jesus--you voted for us."

Then the whole group came back to their senses,
Remember our pose, our attacks, our defenses.
"How can we use this against them," Bush thinks;
Call them "liberals," "whiners," "they drives when they drinks"?

"Let's skip that last one," one of them said,
"Especially when driving makes some end up dead."
"We'll search all their records, we'll dig up some dirt,
"As the Lord God permits us to fight when we're hurt."

As the privileged demons prepared their attack,
Something new had called them back.
The media learned of the incident here;
Those brown-nose corporate crawlers--they're nothing to fear.

The media grilled Bush as they have all along:
"You were right, weren't you Georgie, and they were all wrong?"
Then Bush asked an aide advice on how to seem sincere,
"Give a pinch to your cheek--it'll force out a tear."

Oh what a laugh, the oppressor on top;
Hauls out the Bible, to use as a prop.
The same winners win, the same losers lose,
But who do you fool, when thus you abuse?

------------------

I dreamt I had a dream that night,
Little Bushie's toughest fight.
A real punishment for a real crime;
No Daddy to bail you out this time.

To the dark Other side, get there with a push,
And meet at last the Lord; surprise--it wasn't Bush!
"The punishment you give will be given to you,
"Because you are a sinner, too."

A long line precedes you, so wait at the end,
What have you made of yourself, "Friend"?
Your Party is now the rich, who acquire,
And I know your faith to be that of a liar.

Laughing, partying, your spirit left to rot,
"But I was hungry, and ye fed me not."
You put on an act, have a photo-op here
But there the picture is totally clear.

The powerful arrayed against those who can't fight,
Total oppression this long dark night.
Halliburton, Cheney, GE and more,
Kenneth Starr, WalMart, every kind of whore.

Plotting, planning, stabbing, slashing,
Here is where you belong.
And listen now to the pain of your victims,
Where once, laughing, you sang along.

I ordered you to "Feed my sheep,"
"Give away your riches."
You mouthed the words and took the credit,
Then like a light, it switches.

A slogan, a mask, a campaign tactic,
Pretending to know God's holy pain.
The only visions you ever had
Were from your mounds of cocaine.

You were winning now, on the attack,
Mouthing words straight from that device on your back,
But wait, don't worry, it will come true,
Someday the world will all judge you.

You trick and you fool and do all your research,
No judge can stop you, on corrupt Earth.
And like a rich boy you always get by,
But wait, bastard sinner; when you die....

[texpatriot2004]

32. Oh my gosh, I LOVE THEM BOTH. Thank you so much for these

they are wonderful.

[texpatriot2004]

31. Here are a few poems too

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5014627&mesg_id=5014627

[texpatriot2004]

33. A Dream within a Dream Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
A Dream within a Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

[texpatriot2004]

34. ...the goblins will get ya if ya don't watch out. Little Orphan Annie

The Little Orphan Annie

by

James Whitcomb Riley

Little Orphan Annie's come to my house to stay.
To wash the cups and saucers up and brush the crumbs away.
To shoo the chickens from the porch and dust the hearth and sweep,
and make the fire and bake the bread to earn her board and keep.
While all us other children, when the supper things is done,
we sit around the kitchen fire and has the mostest fun,
a listening to the witch tales that Annie tells about
and the goblins will get ya if ya don't watch out!


Once there was a little boy who wouldn't say his prayers,
and when he went to bed at night away up stairs,
his mammy heard him holler and his daddy heard him bawl,
and when they turned the covers down,
he wasn't there at all!
They searched him in the attic room
and cubby hole and press
and even up the chimney flu and every wheres, I guess,
but all they ever found of him was just his pants and round-abouts
and the goblins will get ya if ya don't watch out!!




Once there was a little girl who always laughed and grinned
and made fun of everyone, of all her blood and kin,
and once when there was company and old folks was there,
she mocked them and she shocked them and said, she didn't care.
And just as she turned on her heels and to go and run and hide,
there was two great big black things a standing by her side.
They snatched her through the ceiling fore she knew what shes about,
and the goblins will get ya if ya don't watch out!!




When the night is dark and scary,
and the moon is full and creatures are a flying and the wind goes Whoooooooooo,
you better mind your parents and your teachers fond and dear,
and cherish them that loves ya, and dry the orphans tears
and help the poor and needy ones that cluster all about,
or the goblins will get ya if ya don't watch out!!!

[Hidden Stillness]

35. "Bushie's Little Made-Up World"--(orig.)

Several months ago, there was a thread on this website called "Bush's Potemkin World," which I think was the title of an editorial, with a link. The title referred to the "Potemkin villages" which were constructed in Russia when Catherine the Great, I think it was, would go out riding with her entourage to meet the peasants, and they were totally fake building fronts etc., and no one was living there. I think the idea was to conceal the fact of the suffering and the squalor of the poor people in the country, (as they were not going to be helped anyway). This then referred, now, to Bush's fake, pre-screened audiences, "reporters" who are actually paid operatives, fake "terror alerts," endless photo-ops, etc., etc. This was a poem I contributed to that thread.


"Bushie's Little Made-Up World"

Bushie's world is a scary place,
A puppet show in time and space;
I tried so hard but could not erase--
Now all is become a foreign place.

Delusion plays as reality
It comes from them, they claim it's me.
My own voice I cannot trace;
All is that distant, smirking face.

Gone is the drone I used to hear,
"Whitewater! Whitewater!" in my ear;
But now whenever I try to see,
halls of mirrors are turned on me.

Cheers coming from everywhere
Yet wherever I searched, no one was there.
Where do facts go when they die--
A lie agreed-on is still a lie.

Images that are not real
A world you can no longer feel;
They give me orders that I have "choice,"
Yet where is the sound of my own voice?

A whirl, a blur of crimes and lies
They used to be writers, now they are spies.
No one keeps straight all they disclose;
the worse it gets, the faster it goes.

Scandals lasting a second or more,
Loyalty oaths, gay porn and war.
The treasury's bankrupt, the media's fake
There's no real world out there, it's all a mistake.

Don't solve our problems; that would be real.
Think up a slogan, a sales pitch, a spiel.
The grinning corporate front, a knife behind its back,
You live in Corporate Ad World Hell, and everyone's a hack.

Life is now a shadow-play,
The nearby world so far away.
You open your mouth, and hear their voice shout--
How will we ever find our way out?

[texpatriot2004]

38. Your poem touched me, it resonates with me...Thank you for

posting it now as I missed the first post on the other thread. You are talented. It's a wonderful commentary on current affairs.

[Jankyn]

36. "The Dead Can Share a Country"

THE DEAD CAN SHARE A COUNTRY


Because the flesh no longer hums its many lively songs
And the bones have ceased their sacred thrumming,
Because the boundary drawn between eye and lid

No longer marks the flit of wakefulness or sleep,
Because the gaping wells beneath their brows, untroubled,
No longer can tell tribe from tribe, because in the silence

Of these dusty mounds is born a land where no bomb drops,
Or if it does, no one can notice—at last, a country
With enough for all, though no one wants to claim it.


by Kel Munger

[AnnInLa]

37. Roy (10 Commandments) Moore's poem.....barf alert

Babies piled in Dumpsters,
Abortion on demand,
Oh, sweet land of liberty;
your house is on the sand.

We've voted in a government
that's rotting at the core,
Appointing Godless Judges
who throw reason out the door.

Too soft to place a killer
in a well-deserved tomb,
But brave enough to kill a baby
before he leaves the womb.

You think that God's not angry,
that our land's a moral slum?
How much longer will He wait
before His judgment comes

www.dailykos.com

[texpatriot2004]

39. Kick it for the poets nm