3.22.03 as Baghdad burns
 by Paul Verizzo
This poem has been rated “R” for profanity and violence by the IPAA (Independent Poets of  America Association)
Recommended for mature audiences only.

************
The History Channel
or maybe it was old schoolhouse 16mm flickerings,
goosestepping adulents recreating Europe in their own image.

Far away a bomb fell today.

“Never again!”
“How could they?”
My father and his buddies pushed the Nazis  back to its shit soiled birthplace.

Far away a Tomahawk flies true to its death today.

From our berth of World War II winning superiority
We become “them” and “us”
“Us”, savior to the world
“Them”, fascist scourge trampled, erased, footnote in history.

Far away a bomber stealthed towards Baghdad today.

Hitler lies,
Hitler lies,
Hitler lies,
Hitler lies,
Hitler lied.
“How gullible they were!” we shake our heads in pity and moral superiority.

Far away one American boy becomes 483 pieces and the desert sucks down his watery blood with
sandy vigor.  Just like Rommel’s boys, you know.

Bush lies,
Cheney lies,
Ashcroft lies,
Kenny Boy lies,
Rush lies,
The ghosts of fascism made present keep on lying,
Goebbels laughs from his grave, despite his neck meeting noose, he has won.

Far away an Iraqi boy weeps in rubble his mother nowhere, except safe in heaven dead.

Aryan superiority
American superiority
Kristalnacht
USA Patriot Act
The Reichtstag burns
The towers collapse
Blitzkrieg!
“Shock and awe!”
Sudetenland
Iraq
Gott mitt uns!
God Bless America!

 Amerika!  God will NOT bless you, you taunt the prophets with hubris wrapped in necessity and
 secular flags, you blaspheme and twist and shit upon the divine teachings of Jesus, hating our
 enemies and keeping our cheeks unturned!

Christian nation?  Impossible.

The Jews did it!
The Iraqi’s did it!
The Jews didn’t do it, of course we know, why didn’t the good German people?
The Iraqis didn’t do it, of course, but half of America doesn’t know they have been lied to, led by
  their nose-rings like cows or lemmings to the cliff chanting “Terrorists! Terrorists!  Kill  them fucking Iraqi terrorists!”
Or was it the Jews?

           America!
The earth I tried to kiss returning to your imperfect but struggling toward Godhood soil when I landed
at JFK once upon a middle east journey
           America!
The people hoping and dreaming and sometimes mistaken but always grappling for righteousness.
           America!
Today my tears fall on my keyboard now wet with pain and anger.

My lover, my darling, my Constitution ravaged by Greed and Ignorance and Fear, shredded by Talk
 Radio of the most neo_NOTconservative kind.

For your raped soul,
For your sins committed upon yourself,
For your sweet dreams turned mares of the night,

I weep.

And the good American people adore their Fuhrer.