CONFESSION ZERO (The Weaver's Song)

What if war were just a dress rehearsal in a school play and torture were long conversations with idiots; bullets, tiny bits of lint culled from laughing soldier's uniforms; fighter jets, kites dropping from the shoulders of the sun; warships, marshmallows floating in a sea of hot chocolate; and tanks, funny little cars full of tumbling clowns?

O! If only it were so, all of the world's hideous warmongers might then be paper dolls in rooms full of beautiful children... each with a pair of scissors.

They lay upon the streets
choking on their own.
Mounds of people
desolate in their being.

Wait.

And breathe in again.
Kicked in the gut;
split like lumber.
This is a home.
Animals have a home.

Wait.

And breathe in again.
Boxes propped up in the rain.
Empty cans rot.
Feeding is done.
Could they have hunger?
Is it ours that they’re hungry?

Wait.

And breathe in again.
Displaced assassination.
Soul tainted by remark.
Hold. The starving soul echoes back
and lives in our queried gaze.
Is this anyone’s “life”?

Wait.

And breathe in again.
Shoes leaking dirt on new snow.
Fingers hold paper canopy
encasing country’s dishonor.
This is not a life, is it?
I think it is best to live.

Wait.

And breathe in again.
Perhaps the hand will move.
Will hope spring?
Will death take notice of this?
Will the good in man change them?
Will our naked shame bow softly?
Will we course this toward nurturing?
Will the hope of man succumb to hunger?
Will the pride of man not rip itself from within?
Might it begin?
Has it now?

Wait.

And breathe in again.
Men, women, and children; living ghosts,
alleyways of mankind infested with distrust,
cursing the self bending through our streets
of our cities and towns to our own expense.
We needn’t turn away in shame, or fear of this;
fingernails caked in dirt, soiled clothes and hair.
Run from it and it rests with you.
Mock it and it returns within you.
Spit upon it and you stir death.
Attempt to remedy; hope, love, salvation
and you turn its hastening back.

Wait.

And breathe in again.
We know these stooped forms are among us.
We know the hand extended is not in greed.
We know we needn’t fear its power,
unless we are soulless and more in need of seeking.
Hope shall soar.
Death will perceive.
The good of man shall foster change.
These bones and faces
are found in every man.
These hopes and despair
frequent the soul’s café,
drinking in the fullness of grace.

Wait.

And breathe in again.
We must believe in the true nature.
We must hope for the caressing of our beings,
beckoning man’s better self, his courage,
that it might rise up, swell within to champion,
take hold our slipped fingers in desire of betterment,
prayers of expectant selfless endeavors,
freedom to ring not hollow,
but thunderous in the flattered ears of politicians!
Booming through the streets of home,
piercing and raucous about this world,
man summoning to man on these cold streets!
As we meander nearer the darkness,
nearer the end,
many will have gleaned over before we know
our echo's come `round again.
Man cannot wait, not upon the streets
of new snow…

...breathe in again.

Afghan civilians killed in fighting
And who are they, living within this land, all this time among the kingdom’s shadow, veiling themselves beneath God and sand, trembling, waiting under flesh and bone.

Afghanistan missile 'hit target'
Again, who are these targets? Laughter, I’m sure, was brimming, moving across their fleshy lips, pursed upon the moment of impact.

Marines in Afghan Assault Grapple With Civilian Deaths
We always struggle more with deaths that aren’t our own, it’s why dust eventually covers all things; it lessens the sheen of sadness.

O! In these times, this infant land; in our sour belly, the warriors of old and new are dying to the filthy refrain of war, war, war, war, war…

Those that came before breathed toward a fresher world, a sea green life in a globe drearier than this; yet we have cultivated the flavor of battle without actually pulling the joyful trigger, distanced ourselves from the entry wound, taken leave of the truth behind a looming void, ate of it so that we’ve dulled the senses. We’ve lost the will to foretaste and now stand agape outside our pleading hope with no tools to dig our way to her; is this what we want of our love; suffocation?

O! In these times, this infant land; in our sour belly, the warriors of old and new are dying to the filthy refrain of war, war, war, war, war...

A stranger at the door; it is we, wringing our flesh of war…

Might we tunnel forth to rescue her? Will the world lend us its many shovels?

Bombs Slow Big Afghanistan Advance
O History! Tell us why we’re so red-faced of shrieking, help us understand where it is we’re going, who it is we’re inviting to ignite our misery, begin to tell us why it is that we’re the prey and not the hunter?

Bombs target political party sites in Baghdad
The breath, that of a black toothed whore, the noise, that of a kingdom’s exactness, the innocent names painted across the sky... carve them to memory.

Afghan operation enters second day
On the sand scraped ground, you are waiting along the chattering roadside, unhappy you’ve been wrestled from sleep, forced, yet again, to rumble the heavens with your most lethal weapon; grief.

US imposes new sanctions on Iran
The weather’s beginning to move again like a scolded child unsure of what’s next. The icy rebuke might be the last of it, unless the forecast breathes of thunder… after that, no child will be safe.

Security Guards Look on as Teen Is Beaten
We do not witness ourselves lifting a hand to come crashing down upon an innocent and within this vision we’re trapped, of no use. Living inside this dream, a sort of emptiness, an opposing sun, the adversary of light.

Iran warns against expected anti-government protests
They walk on feet made of hope, shoulders unstooped by any cruel weight, hands moving through the air like a kite; at times almost motionless, the next, unexpectedly soaring.

Arctic Ice Melting About 4 Times as Fast as Predicted
They talk within us, speaking the language of wolves; interpreters of the ice and wind standing on the top of the moon, reaching down toward our famine.

Sarah Palin calls global warming studies ‘snake oil science.’
Sometimes it’s just funny, ya know, things offered to us, like in a crazy dream, the kind with frivolity and an eerie trembling.

The bitter dust of winter delivers her speech leaving a feeble shell over a once vaulted honor.

She prattles from the arctic basin as my hands move over my disbelief; how can this pale ghost, with her invalid procession, consume expectation like a feral beast?

O! We’ll greet her breathless yelping with sideways glances kept for fools and open the gates to her weather; her misbegotten storm winking deep within our better selves.

She drinks our tidal melancholy left beneath our plodding steps; sadness felled of our waiting, drifts to a pitiable weight.

The bitter dust of winter will pitch us into uncertain folly, statesmen will lather the tempest as she strokes them in madness.

As in the silver waters the thinkingbridge of man still fancies peace

Palestinian mothers known to the spoils of blood yearn for quietude, Angry black women still waiting to be heard pray in harmony

and the men who love men of inequity embrace serenity

As in expectant woman carrying the weight of love the fate of peace

And we who read now with sky-blue hope have eyes for dreaming

and in our course we liberate more than the weeping skies...