dogs will inherit heaven.

this is my confession. I didn't do enough to save

the candle fly writhing on my bedroom floor with the twisted wing.

I only saw it as an opportunity for revenge

for the ones who lit, on the underside of the arboricola,

half naked, doing double pikes when my foot

was broken and the crutch had been

pushed by the witches under the bed. That is

what I do. Think of sorrow afterwards when all degrees of freedom

had been exhausted. Because those days after 911

we drove past tall buildings with droplets of

cappuchino  spilling onto our pantyhose legs

but constantly looking up because now the

truth of airplanes had changed. They do fly into

buildings in broad daylight, full of innocents

with briefcases brimming.

The afternoon Nguyen Van Lem was shot in the temple

by Major General Nguyen Ngoc Loan we,

little kids with big eyes, wondered what sudden death

was like. I mean , men falling lifeless in the half morning

Vietnamese dust. Even those who had killed 34 innocent

women and children certainly deserves the soft pillows that

grandma made of swatches, some of old blankets,

some of discarded shirts. Dad's mystifying silence:

mine was a snow leopard with buttons from a p-coat

for eyes and with that single movement, an arm

that saliva had made prehensile.

He sat with me as the cartoons caressed in that

energetic effort to make me less a sissy. It didn't work.

I grew up hating war and suicide and slogans

and protests you have to have;

murders you have to carry out.

Reviews

[Frank]

I always loathed the way the American film makers demonised the Indians, then the Japanese (although reading Japanese history is less than fun) then it was the turn of the Koreans and Chinese. The films makers the producers and directors made gods of the americans, they could do no wrong.

And we in Europe thanking you for every son who laid down his life (willingly or unwillingly) and every dollar you taxed and gave to us in tins of spam and tins of salmon from wild Alaska, we so wanted to tell you to shut up. Yes, we knew you were the guardian of democracy, we knew you were powerful but flawed. I remember reading Time magazine in Africa, working on a rig, that's all the decent read I could get and week after week it said, body count as if the war could be won by bodies. And even though I had not gone to Princeton, I knew something rotten was in the USA, that they could write these body counts for all the world to see, and measure them, and I could see the disgust that would come their way from impoverished states who needed the dollars and despised a country that could boast of body counts.

Kerry came home from Alabama, she loved blacks for some reason, followed the american camps and married one. She had a beautiful boy and he played with my boy on the beach and we could tell, they loved playing. And me and Kerry never hooked up but we had this thing, we liked each other, you know respect. We talked as the boys played. She had loved this guy, you know, really loved him, but she got fed up of the fear, she had to lay down on the floor of the car when they saw whites, I mean these big strong blacks were terrified of these white runts, these rednecks. It was making her a minority and she didn't like it, and she left bringing her little boy back to Wales, where little black boys can play on the beach with a little white boys and no one raised a eyebrow. And she cried , you know, she missed that man far off in America, and I knew for sure there was something black and rotten in USA.

We saw it in Kennedy too, we saw a Roman Catholic had made it to the white house, but in the end it came out if he had been left alive he would have shagged every American woman in the states, the whole 150 million of them.

So, see what you've done, your poem has raised up in me all my reservation for the past. I still think American is a great country and we would be much poorer without you, but keep on fighting injustice and I will keep on reading if you let me.

[Don't just B, but B ama..]

Powerful, sad but true, very well written very descriptive with great analogies, and hard truths. Stay Strong, World Peace is possible for we make up the majority of the people. Thanks for sharing.

[DIVYA]

This poem spoke to me a lot. We live in a world in which violence and hatred have become indispensable. I often thought animals had more compassion than men and you just endorse this view with your powerful lines.

[RileyRedding]

What a powerful deconstruction of violence.

The flow comes across like beat poetry.

Gaining more and more forward momentum as it goes.

Excellent piece, keep up the great work!

[Beccy]

Dogs deserve it more than us.

When will we ever learn.

Beccy.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

this is significant....killing in the name of war, killing for country, in the name of religion...

reminds me of the dylan song..."with God on our side"

yes, the effects last forever...we look at planes differently, at tall buildings always thinking of 9/11---

all those things...
i remember 1962, walking home from school, wondering if i would get there...those missles in Cuba...the threat.

everything changed...innocence interrupted.
reality knocks us in the gut.