Brits always manage
to kill and conquer
and seem civilized
fine mannered
with the best of intentions.
Look at Tony Blair.
The whole world knows
America screwed up Iraq
murdered thousands of civilians
and delivered
mislabeled Bedlam
called democracy
Look at Dubya.
The Brits
they say
are cozy in Basra
where they get on well with the locals
because
they minimized murder
and provided medicine.
Good PR for good manners.
Curious mate
how nobody explains why Basra
is Cholera Central
and why a returned soldier
in Central England
left off some photos for development
that portray
a bound and gagged Iraqi guy
inside a net
suspended from a forklift
and polite solders
standing by
performing sexual acts
of considerable depravity.
The Brits conquered the world
and innocents abroad thought them genteel.
Take a second look
his time has come.
It’s Jack The Ripper.
Today’s paper reports
that The Garden of Eden has been looted.
Near the Iranian border
Qurna, Iraq’s promo rep
proclaims it to be
the actual, true and historic site
of that perfect Garden.
Its one star luxury hotel
has been completely cleaned by thieves
and seized by fundamentalists
Maybe Adam and Eve
Cain and Able
the Serpent and God
once booked rooms
or lived nearby.
The Garden’s tree’s are war devastated and collapsing.
the tree of life is dead
the tree of knowledge gone mad.
With stinking sewage piling up
and poison water flowing
cholera awaits in the Garden of Eden.
it is an irresistible story
of Rummy’s Rotten Republic
written of course
as if inevitable impersonal and certainly
of no moral responsibility
to NY Times readers.
Our troops will not be coming home just yet
seems like Iraq isn’t really ready
for Rummy’s Empire of Arabia.
Occupied but not defeated
its army hiding out in T Shirts
its Shiites growling in the streets.
The national lootathon continues
and American soldiers
are ambushed
in cold blood
and hot deserts.
Everything is broken
The can’t do Dubya
is in charge.
Our fresh faced
low in numbers
legion of doom
with only one day’s training
in mob control
must now police
an armed angry people,
perhaps their great love of Arabs
and Islam will
pull them through.
When I was ten
they told me
“we got Israel because of Hitler.”
A Jewish State
seemed like a consolation prize.
What will they give Palestinians,
by way of saying,
your existence isn’t a complete loss?
The right to absolutely control
garbage collection on the
West Bank and Gaza
and call that a
State of Palestine?
Sharon gives up Arab cities
that he never wanted.
Keeps the surrounding land and water
and born again Settlements,
enlarging the prize
that pretends it equals
six million victims.
The Palestine prize?
Leavings of the not yet looted.
Too pathetic
to pretend.
Three American soldiers
shot dead in the last two days.
Iraq never surrendered,
no grim generals signing
articles of crying uncle
on rule the world battle ships.
Iraqi army retreating
into the every day streets
of chaos, looting and resistance
everyone has AK 47’s
who are holy,
who are soldiers,
who is the thief of Baghdad?
Our American Empire
its chest thrown out
its gut sucked in
built firmly
on a swamp.
