FEBRUARY/MARCH 2006

 Found in the Free Library
By Eleanor Wilner
www.thedish.org

"Write as if you lived in an occupied country." - Edwin Rolfe

And we were made afraid,
Being afraid we made him bigger than he was
A little man and ignorant,
Wrapped like a vase of glass in bubble wrap all his life,
who never felt a single lurch or bump,
carried over the rough surface of other lives
like the spoiled children of the sultans of old
in sedan chairs, on the backs of slaves,
the gold curtains on the chair pulled shut
against the dust and shit of the road
on which the people walked, over whose heads he rode,
no more aware than a wave that rattles pebbles on a beach.

And being afraid, we forgot to notice
who pulled his golden strings, how their banks overflowed
while the public coffers emptied,
how they stole our pensions,
poured their smoke into our lungs,
how they beat our ploughshares into swords,
sold power to the lords of oil,
closed their fists to crush the children of Iraq,
took the future from our failing grasp
into their hoards, ignored our votes,
broke our treaties with the world,
and when our hungry children cried,
the doctors drugged them so they wouldn't fuss,
and prisons swelled enormously
to hold the desperate sons and daughters of the poor.
To us, they just said war, and war, and war.

For when they saw we were afraid,
how knowingly they played on every fear-- so conned,
we scarcely saw their scorn,
hardly noticed as they took our funds,
our rights, and tapped our phones,
turned back our clocks, and then, to quell dissent,
they sent...(but here the document is torn)
..........
'Stink of the Union'
- by Ian Reed -
(on Bush's "State of the Union" speech, Jan. 31, 2006)
www.reedandwrite.com


To much applause at every punctuation mark,
Bush cautioned lest the violent inherit the earth
"with their dark vision of hatred" which, to counter
"requires the rule of law" to purchase freedom's worth.

Decrying "perversion of a noble faith into
an ideology of death," he railed again
about Islam, but it is Christianity
that suffers most from this indignity. Amen.

"They're serious about mass murder," Bush declared,
"and would impose totalitarian control;
they want to arm with weapons of mass murder, and
seize power in Iraq," but these describe his role.

Defying the world with nuclear ambition, he
bemoaned Iran run by a "clerical elite,"
its isolation and repression of its people,
yet it is he, and here, exemplifies this feat.

Did not the beast have power, in brief authority,
to utter blasphemies? And yet yhey worshipped him,
saying that none could war against imperial might,
to which the media horns blare in resounding din.

If irony implies the opposite to what
words normally intend, and if he apes God's will,
Unwittingly Bush is a walking sarcasm.
"Their day will come," he prophesied. O yes, his will!

Meanwhile, the prince of this world  must be satisfied
his mouthpiece in the White House answers to his cue
Telling Americans to rest assured that he
"remains on the offensive." Well, that much is true.

February 2006