Newspoem 7 February 2007

U.S. Vs. Us

The rift widens. What he hears in his language astonishes him.
On NPR the war is becoming unpopular four years too late.
Talking heads rattle dentures, Is this war a mistake?
His fist impales the snooze button. War is a mistake.
Six minutes later, How will we end this war?
His fist impales the snooze button. We will end war.
Six minutes later, How should nuclear weapons be used?
His fist impales the snooze button. Nuclear weapons should be dismantled safely.
Waking up is hard to do.
Groggily, toothbrush in hand, he cranks on the bathroom faucet.
Shiny blood splatters in the sink.

The INS has slipped a notice under his door. He is to be deported to Nutopia.
I won't be going to Fort Benning this year, or performing in the benefit concert with Dylan.

He has stayed up for a week trying to derive a viable poetic.
Newspoetry impossible in the millennium.
A sense of humor unobtainable through any logical proof.
Hypocrises too obvious to be worth pointing out to any literate citizen.

It got worse in 2004.
He'd like to blame electronic voting machines
but can't ignore the possibility that people actually voted
for Bush. That they like the war, and even thin lies,
like mass murder, like to know it's murder,
but want to be able to pretend they think it's freedom,
that Joseph Wilson has the freedom to never have spoken out against his boss.

Chomsky says not to speak truth to power,
power already knows.

Do friendly neighbors, cashiers, cousins have murder in them?

Uncle Sam is a violent alcoholic, but they say
"he's fun-loving to a fault,"
in case the European neighbors are listening.

Who, then, is newpoetry for?

Is poetry the last living activist?

Bush calls for a hat trick: losing three wars at the same time.
His handler has bought him an A Flock of Seagulls single
so he can practice his pronunciation: "Iran so far away."

The NPR spokesman is uneasy about this new development.
He'll have to repeat the possibility every morning
so we can all get used to the murderous absurdity.
Leading Democrats who claim to oppose a wider war
will not stop a catastrophe if it may earn them an extra vote.

In antagonizing Iran, an expert bleats, a misstep could have grave consequences.
His open mouth drools Clausewitz's metaphor.
Killing children could have grave consequences.

For the killers.

If they aren't careful.

I am opposed to killing children.
So am I! But-

They miss Reagan, he misses the secret wars, when killing seemed shameful.
When they fed Iran and Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden U.S. weapons
and let them kill each other. But this Bush, he is a superman.
He gives the budget back to the wealthy and then decides, the treasury running on fumes,
we'll fight the Iran-Iraq war, the Korean war, and the Soviet-Afghan war ourselves
on four simultaneous fronts. And if we start to lose, we'll find yet another enemy and
double our bet.

This won't be another Vietnam. This will supplant Vietnam Syndrome
with a sharper trauma.

There's a reason he's feared nuclear weapons his whole life.

He once wanted newspapers to be pureed and poured into his ear canal.
But this ink is toxic.

On the White House lawn is a mountain of American tongues
cut out of our mouths. Iran? Nuclear weapons?
What the fuck? we whisper to our lovers, curtains drawn.