The Good News

America went to war
with Viet-nom
to prevent the spread
of Communism
you see if we let them
take over
then those commies
would take over another country
and before you knew it
all the countries
would be Communist
and they’d try
to make us Communist
but despite 58,000 of us dying
and millions of them dying
and all those bombs, and Agent Orange
and napalm
we couldn’t stop the commies
and we left
but today
Viet-nom makes all our Nike’s
for cheap and
nobodies worried
about the commies
taking over the world anymore
now today forty years later
we went to war with Iraq
to spread democracy
the way the commies
wanted to spread Communism
if we got Iraq, democratic
then maybe we could get another country to
become democratic and we
could all live in peace
so the first thing we did
was a huge bombing campaign
called Shock and Awe
so we could shock them into
being peaceful like us
then we had this Abu Graib Prison
where we tortured them
to get information that
would make things more peaceful
anyway it seems
like the Iraqi’s are
catching on to our
peace plan pretty good
and are killing each other
right and left
with no end in sight
not to mention
killing us too
but they say
we can’t leave now
or things will get messed up
But it seems to me
weather you try to
stop something from spreading
or you try to spread something yourself
you only make it worse

— David Ochs



To My Beloved:

1
morning north wind grey day
alone in a corner of our bed
cold to the bone yearning
for you my faraway man
has your foot healed?
has your winter coat arrived?
who watches over you while you sleep?
if you die my tears will shroud your corpse
if I die?

2
no letters come through,
I wait, look, nothing.
would I had wings
to hover near you my dear
unable I am sorrow without end

3
I lean on others
dream I welcome the God of Death
curling around my heart
like a poisonous snake
I am misery
have you forgotten me?


4
I pity our children
do you miss them?
they won’t grow like others
play in the warm spring
but they are ravaged
by the violent storm of revolution

5
oh my beloved
I want to kiss your eyes
you my man belong to me
I want to go to you
our children hold me back
come come to me
warm my loneliness
with an open heart
dare I hope?

Changsha, China, 1929

(Kai-hui was assassinated by the Nationalists after Mao
refused to ransom her and their two sons)



The Killing Fields
By Paul Lobo Portugés

I cry a psalm a river of prayers
at the cemetery of shadows
when bombs made tombs of the enemy
asleep in their God after first rains
birth gold grasses over Darfur’s oil
break winter dead earth as jagged blood
rivers bear witness to whirlwinds of death
these devils shimmering on horseback cleanse
the land of Blacks take the war weary
girls in the middle of starry night

by three in Wadi Tima three times three
in Kailek because of their ebony skin
“to change the color of your babies” they rape
then with machetes cut the young breasts
kick the moving fetuses with gov’t.
issue boots one hundred thousand dishonored
daughters cast from the land of Genesis
widowed mothers wandering nowhere
to cry forever one hundred thousand
boys slaughtered crying bones in the scorched wind

hungry flies delight in the hot shade
as a bent over wanderer cries “God is great”
remembering the sounds of her dead children
she draws blood lines in the blowing sand
three for her daughters: teacher dancer seer
heaped into the howling village afire
three for her sons: farmer herdsman poet
feet slit from toes to ankles testicles bulging
from their fly covered mouths their god fearing
eyes open to heaven weeping no more

sincere speeches are made a poem written
Dali Lama blesses the forsaken
as bullets fly each into the other
ignored daily by headlines of oil
as flesh girls lick tv for pretty
and spice boys practice viral games of death
until forgiving earth brings forth fire and flood
that God willing gives birth to black lovers
waiting for the blood of the living ground
with aboriginal mind for love’s song



The Tiny Death

I am hoping, in some small way,
I die tonight, & I don’t mean that

in the sense of the repressed
nineteenth century orgasm.

What I wish is for a small bit
of consciousness to wither,

for a certain part of my harried
brain to atrophy. I know this will

not happen as the dreams which
taunt me expose each variable

kink in thought. But the wish
continues: a defeated, supplicant

prayer to a disdainful, nonexistent
God. The prayer is unanswered

every night, and every morning
I pull on my boots, thinking still.

— Todd Young