CONFESSION ZERO

Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only person officially recognized as a survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings at the end of World War II, has died at age 93. Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip for his shipbuilding company on Aug. 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He suffered serious burns to his upper body and spent the night in the city. He then returned to his hometown of Nagasaki, about 300 kilometers (190 miles) to the southwest, which suffered a second U.S. atomic bomb attack three days later. ( Read Full Story by The Associated Press ) PALE USE For it did make him that day and a shriek did blow a hole in his sky, pushing a countless death behind shrunk of its breadth like a child in the darkness floating downward to breathe all the names bringing the dead to call out in the flames. No! No! No! No! Hear them wail. Hear them cry. Hear them shriek as the wind lifts them hom...

-From Palestine to a Prison- (click to enlarge) 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine (and World War II and Palestine) End of the British Mandate 1945–1948 1948 Palestine war Clash in Egypt Over Gaza Aid Effort 2009 O! How happy the prisoners in their own land seemed before this! All smiling at the chance of relief and food and breath, feet firmly planted on a shrinking plot to the west of the Jordan River. The prisoners have no rights, no government, no land or love. No history to hold, no child to mourn, no passion, no art. Hostage to giant machines, to guns, to tumbling shells and terror, prison guards, tanks, and the rising wall, yet they do have rights and governance and land and love and history and child and passion and art- truth. O! How happy the prisoners of their own land seemed before this! Facing the Mediterranean, the great watery span between home and the press of hate, the Jordan and Dead Sea behind, vultures awa...

Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney: "If you are an 18-28-year-old Muslim man then you should be strip searched. And if we don't do that there's a very high probability we're going to lose an airline." Those words tumble down as if the very parchment of liberation underneath the founder's hands had never been. The general’s words, serious and harsh, plant their seeds in our ears as some seem to revel in their condescending power like children dashing to and fro through a lawn sprinkler stripping down to smiles as they go. It isn’t until an adult yells from inside the house that the children even realize they’re exposed. © 2010 by mark prime

Suicide Attack in Pakistan Kills 75 The careful plodding of men with vengeance worn like a sweater stretched tight upon their soul greet us in languages we need learn but will not while there’s war to be made. Iraqis outraged as Blackwater case thrown out Anger, bleeding like the mouth of two rivers found in the drought of justice, shall soon flow by other means. Missed signals cleared way for suspect to board plane Fear was no longer the weight increased by our strategy, our steel shelter that drapes us like scarves, but again it was ready to acquire its place, adorned on foreign shoulders. Iran reformist criticizes government crackdown Ahead of the darkness, within the lucid entrance of freedom, the flesh of civilian, driven by feet breathing rainfall, demands to be heard. Their story shall be told. Pakistan Taliban claims it carried out CIA attack  -  CIA Resolved to Avenge Agents' Deaths Between them both sits a jackal with red eyes set upon its prey, pati...

Lessons learned from 9/11 terrorist attacks? What is it that the wail of our voice has given us in the stamp of days lurching forward on the damp streets, eyes upon our feet, omitting the faces reflected in this glass grown in our hands and thickened skies over the oceans clot of war’s nectar, man’s squander, while mountains give way to unconscious machines, voices, wooden with a thick green-love? What is it that the wail of our voice has given us that the march of a grassless plain or an iceless crest cannot sign, we gauge their descent like a killer, set to be forgiven sins we’ll soon commit, as pointed fingers wag at the surging breach leaning its majesty over the dampened sun. © 2010 by mark prime

He has taken off his sandals. His feet seem new as he moves about. The sandals have been on for far too long. Walking in them seems pointless. Within one hundred yards a crowd has begun to grow from the moans of protest because something lives there. Something breathes the jarring dust of solitude and cries out without a throat, tongue lashed to pretense with all the trappings of hostilities’ offspring. O! He wishes to see the sun! Alone, unshackled, while wearing his own sandals, his own clothes, his own wish, his own sky! How long now has it been? Years… years alone. Loneliness is just a word, like worship or friendship or death. This man has a crowd of words, a horde of thoughts that are his, yet heavy with chains like some rabid beast. His voice now an echo unto himself. Unto himself. He has concluded his begging for freedom and is now ready to move along. He had things he wanted to give away. He had things he wanted to relinquish like rolling thunder. But...

We stand out in the cold for the fog of life to paint our silver breath on the thickened air, we cock our heads to watch it drift away, vanish really, to assure us that we’re living. We clasp our beating wrist with our fingers to hear life’s deep thrum holding rhythm, while the things of art and sky whirl and our hearts complete what our tongues cannot speak. We make no murmur as we enter into nightfall and have no pang as the birds return the sun, this is the world and we sway with her. O! Lean down with your tears of morning for our delight And when the lords of death thrust their blades, hold us near, and steady our lance that they might feel our resistance in the red corridors of dream! Keep the lords of death at bay until our child is ready! We stand out in the cold for the fog of life to paint our silver breath on thickened air, we cock our heads to watch it drift away, vanish really, to assure us of our living. We are tired of these charlatans of supervision with their...