Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Heaven Help Us All...

Written upon the 50th anniversary of the engineered bombing of Pearl Harbor when fat red-faced martini soaked politicians were asking whether The Japanese should apologize for Pearl Harbor.


"Should the Japanese Apologize for Pearl Harbor?"


the Japanese were not the first
to bomb Pearl Harbor
we were

so i think the Japanese should apologize for Pearl Harbor

just as soon as we apologize to the Hawaiians
for bringing the mosquito and yellow fever
killing thousands

for bringing venereal disease

for the horror of sugar cane

and purple mountains travesties
above the looted plains

for sabotaging the beaches with kiawe thorn trees
to force the natives to drape their bodies
from the hot gaze

of their twisted
goddamned
christian missionary eyes


i think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as America
apologizes to the Japanese Americans
for interning them in concentration camps

and as soon as Richard Nixon's Quakers apologize
for stealing their properties

(which were left to them in trust to be returned upon their release
which they were not)


I think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as we apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki

(still simulated every year at a Texas airfield)


i will always remember how the blast fused their shadows
into the building walls

THEY DIDN'T GET ANY WARNING EITHER


i think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as we apologize to the Native Americans
for the ruin of their culture

the theft of their lands

the whiskey and infected blankets

the destruction of their hunting grounds

and for stripping them of all humanity and dignity

THEY DIDN'T GET ANY WARNING EITHER


i think the Japanese should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as America apologizes
to the African Americans

for slavery

beatings

emasculations

rapes

hobblings and brandings

pretended emancipations

segregation

lynchings

and

the slandering
imprisonment
and murder of their heroes


i think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as America
apologizes to Cambodia

for 3640 B-52 bombing raids
and 110,000 bombs dropped
during a war that never took place

and for backing Pol Pot
as the legitimate representative of the people

(i remember to this day
the pyramid mountain of skulls outside Pnom Phen)

THEY DIDN'T GET ANY WARNING EITHER


i think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
as soon as Attila apologizes to Rome

Salome apologizes to John the Baptist

on the day that politicians become honest
bankers become generous

no fault applies to love

and the Pope shits in the woods


and should be delivered to the White House

by a woman on ice skates

ten minutes after Hell freezes over




Written after reading a piece of unispired shit by Ferlinghetti shortly after the war started.


With Apologies to Ferlinghetti


lost in the bushes
with the WMDs
and all that compassion
running like the clap from
an infected dick
and everybody lost and nothing got found
back in the day
when the lies seemed so real
but were not enough to win
so they let the court steal the country
and the heart and the mind
as the neo-cons got up as one
to kiss his red behind
spanked in private
kissed in public
and came all over himself
couldn’t remember where or when
hum a few bars
I’ll get back to you
Do lunch
Do your wife and kids too
If you
Fuck around
all the kiddies that got left behind
along with truth
justice
and the American Way
getting skull-fucked by
Spiderman
Cock-blocked by the frogs
On the Champs Elysses
lost in the bushes
and fucked behind the bushes
and discovered in the bushes
somebody needs to beat the bushes
till the tigers appear
♫and the beast ran away on the spear ♫
Halliburton
and Venell
up on the hooks
drying in the sun
Justice jerky
“Did it make your nipples tough?”
Got to be a Lecter moment
while the twins hit the bongs
could be from Laura’s dimebag
go to girl in college
dead man on the highway
and the Iraqi children bring the water home
that shimmering radioactive water
from the nuclear containers
that they found in the caverns
while we
were protecting
the oil ministry
and the museums were smashed and looted
and someone’s
having tea with Osama
on the beach at Tripoli
WMD’s sitting in sun-chairs on the sun blasted shore
of purple mountains travesties
Maui Jim sunglasses and
cocktails at six
with the great whore
of Babylon
who squats on the banks of the Potomac
where the necessary work gets done
and the vultures soar
over the looted plains
the blasted limbs of children
that will never dance again
in the streets of Baghdad
As Nintendo jet fighter pilot bush
lands on the aircraft carrier
with his sock stuffed crotch
packed like a Piñata
waiting for history
to kick him in the nuts




Written after an IDF thug shot a young Palestinian girl collecting the familiy's laundry on a rooftop. Then he shot her brother when he went to help. It happens every day. How about the IDF thug that shot a prepubescent girl from a hundred meters on her way home to school with her lonely bookbag on her back and then went over and emptied his rife into her- confirming the kill. My name is Les Visible and I approved this posting.

His Rachel Corrie Moment (In Memory of Asma al-Mughayr)


the cross-hairs fix
across the rooftops

wind from the south-
....five knots

and leading
across the space where birds
have flown

but now
in the cold Ashka-Nazi eye

the young girls form
moves in laughing dance

arms gathering the laundry
she dreams
and surely she must hope
of a world and a life beyond today

as finger tightens
upon trigger...

when it came
the explosion was

of such a force that...

he came too

like Romeo's ghost upon
the imagination's palanquin of night

the bearers of the darkness
they toiled
underneath the thrust

of bullet and finger touching
the silenced heart

and
blood like a fountain
sprayed upon the sheets...

....some secret code
that she read as
she fell dying to the roof

this...

his Rachel Corrie moment come
round at last.





I am sorry to say these things. I am sorry for the soldiers who believe they fight for freedom but fight only for coporate profits. There may have been righteous wars and here is what I think of the honorable soldier... those few, not the ones who tormented the young boys chasing their half track after the water they held out while mocking them, not the ones who rape and jerk off to the carnage with bloody hands on their dicks, not the ones who think the righteous insurgents are terrorists, not the ones... the ones... the ones...not them.

"Tommy" by (Rudyard Kipling)


"I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o'beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins,'' when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mr. Atkins,'' when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy how's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints:
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;

While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind,"
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
But Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!"



"Heaven Help us All" by Stevie Wonder


Merry Christmas.