|
CounterPunch
October
5, 2002
You Know What
They're Gonna Do, Don't You?
by MICHAEL O'McCARTHY
They are gonna grab us by our
hair
And drag us into the daylight--
Or midnight spotlight lit streets
Kicking and clubbing and stomping us
Batting our lips swollen and bloody
Screaming Militant, Rabble Rousers,
Misfits, Revolutionary, Faggot, Lesbo,
Queer, Homo, Communist, Nigger, Kike,
Spic, Redskin, Polak, Wop, Chink, Mick,
Just like they have now these
Three hundred free years.
They will tear open our stomachs
With bonefish hooks,
Tow out our intestines
Behind their Navigators, Mercedes
And Escalades SUV toeing packages
Daring us to continue to dissent.
Twisting off our sexual nipples,
Ripping away our fecund testes,
Pulling away our tumescent cocks,
Prying off our throbbing clitorises,
Filling our fertile anuses with
Fast drying cement,
In the effort to render us impotent like them.
Wont you stand up now.
Take just one hand.
Just one,
And grasp it
And say no.
You don't have to go anywhere
At first.
Just stand there.
Let the tears of life come.
Begin to hum no.
Sing the song no,
Murmur no
And look each other
In the eyes
And smile no.
No to the cruel, frigid whiteness
of their
Thin lipped Kaw-Kasion drawn skin
Covering their Nazi death skulls beneath.
No to their Jesus who never lived.
No to their God who,
Except disguised in the white Kaw-Kasion
Skin of Charleston Heston,
Never cursed humankind
Nor bore arms
To murder those left.
Or they will summon you
Before their shining mahogany desk
Housed on the 199 floor
Of their new Trade Center Building
Seat you politely
And with a disdainful smile
Terminate you without pay
Or severance or extension
Of benefits without reason
Except the needs of business,
Nothing personal.
Call for security and march
you
A criminal
Down the hall past your
Ex-colleagues,
Descend you in the elevator
Like their God would send you
To Hell,
And out of the suddenly silent lobby
Standing you in the street
As your stockings
Or socks hang below
Your ankles,
And your new non-shrink
Frilled-necked, appropriate blouse
And business lengthened skirt
Or business-dress shirt and tie
Shrinks around your shaking
Sweat soaked body.
And there you stand
Post mortem,
As a promising rigid clerk,
Who has never heard of,
Much less read,
Ferlinghetti, Ginsburg, Kerouc, or Wakoski,
Or heard Miles, Coltrane, Sarah,
Billie, much less Bessie,
Brings out your personal belongs
In a brown cardboard box
And sits them at your feet
Because contact may be contagious.
Either way
What you know as your life
Is over,
If you don't begin to say
No right now.
Michael O'McCarthy
04-10-02 ©
Michael O'McCarthy is an investigative reporter, poet and, currently,
campaign manager for Kevin Gray's bid to become Governor of South
Carolina. This poem is from his forthcoming chapbook, OH AMERICA,
WHERE ART THOU. He can be reached at: OPoetry@aol.com
Observations Are Confessions
by DAVID VEST
People are walking the streets in disbelief,
wondering who could possibly
have wanted this madness
and where it all will lead.
Hailstones fall from the sky. Each
one weighs 108 pounds.
"Bring me the man who wanted this!"
the president cries.
A yellow cloud of daffodils,
a geyser of anemones
buries the White House gardener.
The ministers of death conduct
investigations, detaining citizens,
requiring them to look
at photographs of nothing
and confess their desires.
The whole country
is afraid to go to sleep,
fearful some god
will monitor dreams,
regarding them as prayers,
and answer every one.
"I can't get any rest,"
moans the judge.
"Try to want some,"
the wife begs.
Statues of heroes fall
on nurses in the park.
The private aircraft of executives
dive into the canyons
of Wall Street, thick
as confetti, and the wreckage
mounts.
David Vest
writes the Rebel Angel column for CounterPunch. He is a poet
and piano-player for the Pacific Northwest's hottest blues band,
The Cannonballs.
He can be reached at: davidvest@springmail.com
Visit his website at http://www.rebelangel.com
Autumn Down
by MURRAY DAILEY
Leaves begin to rustle,
Clamoring dry melodies and
Lingering on limbs.
Golden hues emerge
Reflecting tree trunks
As the dark arms of
Later winter scenes.
Moving to the forefront
Of landscapes, skylines
roar with the ancient yakking
Of migrating geese--
Eternal southern tradition.
The sky hangs on,
Looming hazily in a
Slight return of summer;
The last of these
Indian dog-days.
And well remembered
Are Autumn wildflowers,
Clinging relentlessly
In colors impossible to ignore.
Murray Dailey
clamors in the northern outskirts of Detroit, Michigan with his
wife and dog. When he is not traveling or lingering around her
shorelines and forests, he keeps a tenous and skeptical pace
beating back the city, raising hell and writing.
He can be reached at: Murphwild1@aol.com
Yesterday's
Features
Ahmad Faruqui
The Anvil
of War and the Ailing American Economy
Norman Madarasz
The
Truth and Violence
of a Symbolic Act
William Hughes
Political
Show Trial for
Marwan Barghouti
Ron Jacobs
The Struggle
Against
Another Oil War
Sen. Robert Byrd
Bush War
Plan:
Blind and Improvident
Michael Schwalbe
The
Costs of American Privilege
Ralph Nader
Holding
Politicians' Feet to the Fire on Corporate Crime
Robert Buzzanco
Pacifica
Caves in to Zionist Smear Campaign
New
Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- How to Change the Subject: Corporate Scandal and Pension
Reform as Weapons Against Warmongering;
- Padilla's Predecessor: Court Ruling Cites 1904 War
Against Mining Union;
- Adios Hitchens: the Dorian Gray of Our Time;
- Object of Suspicion: How the FBI Watched Janis Ian
From Birth;
- First Carter, Then Clinton,
Now Sen. John Edwards:
Another "New South" Slimeball;
- Corporate Crooks: Nature or Nurture?
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|
October 2,
2002
Carol Wolman,
MD
Is the
President Nuts?
Diagnosing Dubya
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Something
Rotten in Klamath
Linda S. Heard
Might Sharon
Nuke Iraq?
Joanne Mariner
When
the Judge Says:
"I Botched It"
Peter P. Mahoney
A Vietnam
Vet Makes the
Case Against War on Iraq
Mark Engler
From the
Quarantine
Agaisnt Greed
Uri Avnery
Manufacturing
Anti-Semites
Jennifer Berkshire
Converging Against Capitalism
October 1,
2002
Benjamin Shepard
On the
Road Again:
IMF/World Bank Protest
Reveal a Revived
Movement for Global Justice
Dr. Susan
Block
Cockfight
at the
Baghdad Corral
Krystal Kyer
Growing Union Opposition
to War
Ron Jacobs
Born Without a Spine
Scott Loughrey
Mysteries
of 9/11
Jeremy Brecher
Collective
Security is Working
Brenda Norrell
Troy
Black Feather on
the American Flag
Sam Bahour
Wake Up
and Smell
the Occupation
Richard Harth
Contrary
to Reason:
Adieu, Hitchens, Adieu
Carol Norris
Rumsfeld
the Surrealist:
Things Related and Not
Ben Tripp
Lists Upon
Lists
September
30, 2002
Rep. Barbara
Lee
Alternatives
to War
Kurt Nimmo
Iraq: The
Vision
of the Velociraptors
Zeynep Toufe
"We
Own the World, We Ignore the Children"
Dave Marsh
The Troubador's
Highway
Tariq Ali
Taking
It to London's Streets
Neve Gordon
Bush's
War of Self-Adulation
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
|