poem | S. K. Kelen

BUSINESS AS USUAL: THREE ALMOST SONNETS

1.
Seal the deal with a machine gun –
a whiff of oil brings wild boys running.
Head on out, a Posse on a shootem-up.
They pray to the gods of war.
Let bombs kill and mutilate.
Let children sicken and die.
Thugs control the streets and murder
people going about their daily lives.
Libraries and museums burn like the future.
And let precious life trickle like water in     sand.
For years to come, kids, better watch for     landmines
wherever you step. To be a patriot learn     the art
of suicide. When the killing’s done
Democracy will come and enlighten a land
benighted by plain old bad and wrong.

2.
No shouting Yankee go home
or organising labour ever did much good.
Yankees take what they want and     everything
goes to hell. Just last week a treasure     chest
called Iraq was subdivided into Hi-octane,     Standard
and Lead replacement. Military and civilian
casualties have been heavy, but ultimately
cost effective, the legacy of so many     people’s
hatred is a risk to be factored, exploited
and communicated. Fear guides us now
but know a world wide boom will come
and wash away the blood.
Lots of Iraq jokes on Saturday Nite Live
And booty, booty for the lucky ones.

3.
Tortured ghosts will remind you it’s not
just Yankees, it’s every bullyboy ever lived
and living having his day drenched in blood.
Ruski go home never did much good either
nor for the rest of the murdering scum.
History a list of mass-murderers?
Vicious apes love torture and war.
Behind it all is a shared faith that’s no      mystery
and fundamentalists of any ilk appreciate:
the rapture of the world’s end glimpsed in      war,
its highest human expression is the sunlight
born from a thermonuclear explosion –
& Purity is delivered – heavenly
clouds of vaporised ocean.

© S. K. Kelen
Overland 184–spring 2006, p.12