CONFESSION ZERO

Tancredo tells University Students "It IS About Race!" There is an immense and colorless grief in the world and so I urge no malice against this frenzied persuasion, call for no punishment, seek no apology or pain, instead, let us search for our own truths… without weeping. Back from Iraq, soldiers look ahead Returning to the disquieted world like a nomadic ghost covered in sand, the uniforms carefully starched and pressed hold the warriors up, their eyes, stories of woe. Mexico slaps tariffs on U.S. goods in truck feud The crows, above our fears, fly, shadows trace along the wall and money slips by. White House Rebuffs Cheney It will not be his last rejection, but, fret not, gates will open for him again, hunched in the heaving nighttime bloodstained hands, talons. NASA: Space Station Safe From Latest Debris O! Again! Glorious is this achievement, machines lifting mere mortals to heaven... If only man could be as magnificent. Warning shot ...

Downturn trims list of billionaires What remains for us to sing about when we’re alone? We’ve been left a tall rocking horse on the arid shores whose face is stopped in horror, fierce eyes, pale mane, and a faded mouth filled with graying, wicked teeth. It cannot be enough. Teenage gunman kills 15 in German school attack One can sense the pallid bend of eternity as it tumbles headlong off the peak. (Have we been here before with an equally strange and untamed coldness?) Surely our minds will strike a chord and summon our better selves? Without doubt. Yes? ...Without a... Israel Stance Was Undoing of Nominee for Intelligence Post The land remains, the waves bite the shore with thunder like shrill whores pacing outside a fortified gate in a land gone mad of money, torture, war and death, a constant noise percolates in the greed-murdered flesh. Scattered Droplets of Inspiration. Build the machinery that shall deliver us from here. It’s not our job to rescue homes or cl...

Alabama rampage leaves several dead Storm of the wounded, the quieted dead snuffed down under. What will we do, drain ourselves of living? Where are we traveling in the smog-stacked spaces of dread... Acidic seas fuel extinction fears The sea crept by a sunken oil tanker, air bubbled out its blackened hull and called out, “In here! It’s safe enough!” The sea moved on without notice. Madoff faces life in prison on 11 criminal charges Eleven- One more and he’d be a disciple, one less and he’d be Moses, as it stands, death will find him there. CIA Torture: A Reckoning at Hand? O agony has found his lover in this, with hooded face and shackled wrist, naked, they shall move together as one and assemble tombs in their offspring. Bomber kills 33 at Iraq peace conference They had removed their shoes and sought a silence over the blaring storm that shrieked across an engaged spirit, their many scarves, like a morning dew, longing to shroud the wounded world. © 2008 mrp/thep...

US 'not winning in Afghanistan' The useful truths, which are now dead, had something more to offer. They held something greener in a land overwrought with war, hemorrhaging of empire’s lance, crawling with the decaying carcass of liberation. Authors Warn That Many Textbooks Distort Religion Our gods, like the books we consume, often convey our red imaginings, others bring joy to a solemn day, while others convene gray death. It is the same of modern history, written, and rewritten, by mortals. Economic News Continues To Sour O hopeful and poor are the future stewards, their appetite for a new land shall only be eclipsed by their starvation. Study: Widows 'forgotten victims of Iraq' In the center of these women, where astonishing energies of things like the savor of love, the curl in their child’s hair, the way rain drops upon a roof and how the rivers smell, and the way their men so easily touch upon their dreams has forever changed. © 2008 mrp...

What motivated a Florida gunman to open fire on Latino exchange students? It’s hard to tell, but, rest assured, it was not for the same reason that fog drifts out over the bay like a creeping thought or sleep puts her lips upon the offspring of all living things. Finally! Karl Rove and Harriet Miers agree to testify under oath before Congress. Well sort of. Like a caged and unfed dog that builds a church in his howling, or a sleepy guardian of stars that leans her head against the universe, this oath is the only decent pledge, or truth, they’ve ever known. Pants Saggin It stands to reason that all we know comes from the past, but the tree covered in ice can’t grow until it shakes itself free of the load or cries out while it severs its reach, yet a bird snatches its fallen seeds and skillfully ascends into the offing sky. What clothes should we put on when we talk about brotherhood... or war? © 2008 mrp/thepoetryman

"To the missiles chattering beam!" we bow. “O! To bombs dropping from heaven!” we bend. Such folly brings laughter and joyful eruptions from the winking throng of toadies (and the dead). “To green and surrendering grace!” we groan. “O! To these foolish breasts adhere!” we drone. We begin to assemble loyal cities from under the rubble and erect love and honor of smoldering metal and bone. “To our savior’s craft, give worship!” we entreat. “O! To metal-souls, children's breath!” we shriek. We carefully situate fingers and toes for bridges and roads leaving the best of the human frame for soaring metaphors. “To leaders of machinery, give praise!” we beg. “O! To brazen chops, living’s wonderment!” we grant. We heave tanks and jets to fly over enemies of existence and, weeping, we shed the masks that veil our disgrace. © 2008 mrp/thepoetryman

Lay the war down, set it beneath the ground, do not pick it up again, lay the war down. Lay the war down to it’s gravelly trough, left low forevermore, lay the war down. Lay the war down, bury it under heavy clay and beneath massive rock, lay the war down. Lay the war down suffocate its panting rage cut off its bloody head, leave it evermore. Lay the war down forever without sound silent of its horrid screech, leave it underground. O! Lay the war down! © 2008 mrp/thepoetryman