By Donna Fitzgerald
I sip my tea from a flea
Market find
Stoneware depicting an old barn sign
Farm hand stacking wheat
A place I have seen
A Commonwealth, common wealth
Sense of self
I dip my toast
They boast
And defame the good old American name
In the same
Chamber of Horrors as The Monster Hussein.
For someone to blame? To shame?
EXPLAIN!
Ah, it’s okay; they’re the enemy anyway…
RIGHT?
Who’s Right?
War Story
Retaliatory
Covet his story
Chief Commander
Avenge thy father
For thy father
Of weapons of massive destruction
Under construction, under instruction
Of whomever’s right
RIGHT!
FIGHT!
Make it right!
Rewrite historical fact
Ages of unrest
Antediluvian pact
What do you hope to prove in four years
That thousands of years have held back?
And we still don’t know where Osama’s Bin
And next of kin
He’s not in a spider’s hole
Perhaps a rabbit’s hole?
Tonight Show’s cajole
Maybe the North Pole?
You got Sudam Insane; blind, bent useless old troll
When do the credits roll?
I can’t look at the TV anymore for fear of a panic attack
I look back
For the facts
Misconstrued
And refuse
To believe the excuses
Wee the People are confused
And in need of a push
For no bird in the hand, no birds in the Bush
A thornbush…
This night I am started from tormented sleep
Stark naked girl in a bombed out street
Scarcely audible Vietnamese
Sounded like Peace!, Sounded Like Please!
I couldn’t go back to sleep
I was close to her in age
when she first leapt off the page
Into my world for countless days
She knew far more than me how to be afraid
I was afraid
For the world I lived in
For the world I live in
These days
Rhetoric resounding in waves
Audioslaves
Who hang on every wordplay
Believing it will all just go away
If we pray
I pray
For the balance of your nights and days
And okays
Be disturbed
Unnerved
By the final words
And the ashen white face of Nicholas Berg!