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G&G Arts — Poetry
Oceanless
Confused at the newsstand, I buy
nothing, for the headlines look Chinese,
like persistent bees, yellow,
twelve trumpets of the party line —
another Renmin Ribao¹ turns blind,
turns to undigested lies,
turns to profits over saving lives,
turns to mush before my eyes
in a briny sea that carries me
to an isle of honesty,
to the america I believe in but do not know.
I scream out
to the america I believe in but do not know —
We have to die.
We have to die to the notion that
we are an island in an ocean of poor and hungry
fanatical and lonely
terrorists.
There is no island, only the ocean.
No, there is not even an ocean — I can walk
to your house in a moment of need or fear or starvation
and since you caused my starvation
I will come knocking.
"There Is No Neutrality," bellows Bush
and the newspaper lends its voice to this
president, a man whose weakness would be sympathetic —
an overbearing father —
had he not such power
but every screamer on this oceanless earth
must suffer for his fears and empty thirst for war,
an unquenched thirst for tears,
like a fish in a drought starved without air.
We need not war but water for an ocean
to promise that we —
the overbearing father —
will never run away
but will do nothing at all before we'll kill
and call it saving.
Today I buy nothing. To raise
this ocean I turn first to American propaganda;
I dissolve the undigested lies
and lend voice to the silenced, outspoken, long unheard souls
who drift, half-starved, isle to isle,
upon our oceanless earth.
¹Renmin Ribao- "People's Daily," the name of China's largest newspaper
Tony Brasunas is publisher of Garlic & Grass.
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