Found in the Free Library

Found in the Free Library

"Write as if you lived
in an occupied country."
--Edwin Rolfe

And we were made afraid,
and being afraid
we made him bigger than he was,
a little man and ignorant,
wrapped like a vase of glass
in bubble wrap all his life,
who never felt a single lurch or bump,
carried over the rough surface
of other lives like the spoiled children
of the sultans of old in sedan chairs,
on the backs of slaves,
the gold curtains on the chair
pulled shut against the dust
and shit of the road
on which the people walked,
over whose heads, he rode,
no more aware than a wave
that rattles pebbles on a beach.

And being afraid we forgot to notice
who pulled his golden strings, how
their banks overflowed while
the public coffers emptied, how
they stole our pensions,
poured their smoke into our lungs,
how they beat our ploughshares
into swords, sold power
to the lords of oil,
closed their fists to crush the children
of Iraq, took the future from
our failing grasp into their hoards,
ignored our votes,
broke our treaties with the world,
and when our hungry children cried,
the doctors drugged them
so they wouldn't fuss,
and prisons swelled enormously
to hold the desperate sons
and daughters of the poor.
To us, they just said
war, and war, and war.

For when they saw we were afraid,
how knowingly they played on every fear--
so conned, we scarcely saw their scorn,
hardly noticed as they took our funds,
our rights, and tapped our phones,
turned back our clocks,
and then, to quell dissent,
they sent....
(but here the document is torn)


-- Eleanor Wilner

Posted over on Poets Against the War