Bulletin

BULLETIN

It is happening
even as you read this page.
By the time you finish reading this
it will be over.

She will have left the hotel
and disappeared.
He will have eaten the pills.
That one will slip
and crack her skull on the floor.
That one will go out
in a driveby shooting.

halfway around the world
the bombs are dropping

As you read these words it
is already too late.
200,000 children will have starved.
One of them held the Jewel
in his brain, another could cure
plagues with her breath.

As you read this line one thousand
have died of AIDS.
They die alone hidden
in furnished rooms.
They die on the ground
all over Africa.

halfway around the world
the bombs are falling

Do not think to correct this
by refusing to read.
It happens as you put down the paper,
head for the door.
The ozone reaches the point
of no-return

the butterflies bellyflop,
the last firefly, etc.
Do not think to correct this by reading.

The bombs burst the small skull
of an Arab infant the silky black hair
is stuck to your hands with brains.
W/bits of blood. There is less
shrieking than you would expect

a soft silence. The silence of the poor,
those who could not afford to leave.
Drop flowers on them from your mind,
why don't you? "I guess we'll have
to stay and take our chances."

They die so silently even as we speak

Black eyes of children seek eyes
of the dying mother
bricks fall dirt spurts
like fountains in the streets.
In the time you fill a cup
they die of thirst.

In the time it takes
to turn off the radio.
Not past, not future

The huts are blazing now.
South of Market
a woman ODs with an elegant sigh.
No more no less than is needed.

halfway around the world
the bombs are dropping


-- Diane di Prima

Posted over on Poets Against the War