Reflections On terror

ccwbass here:

The massacre at Beslan may have been what finally forced my pen to paper, but my feelings about the subject had been building up for a long while.

Those small few of you who have seen this poem before may notice that one section, “Vengeance Debates the Higher Law,” is missing. The reason is that I never was satisfied with my ability to get the message across. In fact, I’m no longer entirely sure what I was trying to say. I think it was about how trying to fight on our side from a purely secular perspective isn’t exactly part of the recipe for any kind of meaningful success. Anyway, as they say in Hollywood, it’s on “hiatus” for “retooling”, and hopefully the end result won’t be a hopelessly desperate sitcom starring some or other hapless alumni of Seinfeld.

Is the rest of the poem any good? Beats me. I’m too close to it, and I have a tendency to love all my “children”, even (maybe even especially) the ugly ones.

A head’s up to potential card-carrying holders of Absolute Moral Authority: I admit up front that I’ve never served in the military, and that I didn’t take any of this seriously until I was too old. I grew up in the Reagan years: fat, happy, and content that with the Cold War won, we had nothing to fear but fear itself. Those loons in the Middle East – well, they were in the Middle East, so who cared?

I sometimes wonder if, as a middle-aged civilian who hasn’t been interested in guns since I killed a rabbit at the age of 16, I have any right to write poems like this. But I always come to the same conclusion: 9/11 painted a bulls-eye on pretty much everyone’s back, including mine. Thus, I’ve got the moral latitude to pen as much red meat as suits my temper. We all do, and so we all should.

Thanks to [you know who you are] for making this slab of raw t-bone much more poetic than it would otherwise have been.

With that, I shamelessly present . . .

Reflections On Terror

1. No Words

Are there no words for this,
No words to frame?
What words give clarity?
What words bring shame?

To those whose language defines charity
-- As bullets in the backs of young children;
-- As knives through the necks of unbelievers;
-- As human bombs blown to bloody ribbon
There are no words to speak of this.

O God, I have no words,
My mouth is sewn shut,
And butchers bleed my tongue
With each new cut.

2. Jihad

And so jihad is come to sow its war:
To seed the schools and synagogues with blood,
To scythe the necks of infidels with knives,
To plow into the earth a furrowed grave,
And feed within it on our buried heart;
A ghoul’s banquet made of madness and of fear.

So many of us buckle to the fear.
Believing we have had our fill of war,
We open up our chest, expose our heart,
Avert our face while jihad drains our blood.
Avert our face from the others in the grave.
We kneel and scream as jihad plies the knives.

Thank God our fathers turned to grasp the knives
And spat on the selfish luxury of fear.
Thank God they fought the yearning for the grave
And so to spare their loved ones went to war.
Thank God it was in battle they gave their blood
And by such sacrifice spared freedom’s heart.

But here at home are those who’d break our heart.
In colleges they preach for ghouls and knives;
They water down with shame our fathers’ blood;
And claim it is our strength that we should fear:
The ghouls but wage a just and vital war,
And peace will come when we lie in their grave.

The Pressman aids the ghouls, abets the grave.
The only evil man is he whose heart
He’d save by rising up and taking war
Abroad to meet their bombs and greedy knives.
And here’s the Pressman’s deep and shameful fear:
That jihad long ago supped on his blood.

Jihad must choke on every drop of blood!
For every gibbering ghoul a shallow grave,
Until Islam’s mad cancer falls to fear,
Or until we’ve excised every cancerous heart
And melted down to slag their bloody knives.
Eat full, O ghouls, the fare served up by war.

The blood that beats in every jihad heart
Must fill the grave. Their red and flailing knives
Will bleed the fear they'll learn in final war.

3. The Choice

How I hate war, but I hate more to die;
To fall as hail on pavement, while ashes and dust –
That terrible filter that clouds each modern eye –
Becomes another layer of corruption, the rust
Of civilization, and tears of time
Bleed then dry then crust
In layers of lime.

And now we've got to choose our way of war.
The old wolf shakes the flimsy fence we built
In decades past, and tampers with the door;
And would the whole flock kill and feel no guilt.
But if we bar the Shepherd's staff
And breach the gate we built,
Oh, how he'll laugh,

As tooth and claw are given room to tear.
The smarter sheep will bleat "There's peace ahead,"
And silence any sheep who'd offer prayer
Lest we offend the wolf that wants us dead.
The old wolf and his sheepskin cult:
Their totems reek of dread,
And they exult

The more the wolf can rend and savage peace.
His growls have ever told us to submit,
And if his claws and teeth show tufts of fleece,
It only speaks our fate if we should quit.
The wolf is served by wan defense,
And sheep who bleat "Forfeit!"
And make no sense.

4. Epiphany

On the eve of a battle
I lay in my bed
Turning from nightmares
Of blood I will shed
To dream the gold dream
Of an effortless peace
Between like-minded sheep
Of honourable fleece.

Made without warfare,
Terror, or tears,
With hymns of grand hopes,
The internment of fears.

(Dream that gold dream
You peace-loving boy
Play as long as you can
With that wonderful toy.)

But where are these friends,
These wise enemies found?
Worse enemies killed them -
They rot in the ground

Where once they had tongues
They now speak no words
Save through the coarse caws
Of the carrion birds

They lifted no hands
For they carried no swords
And reaped the cold peace
That surrender accords.

(Deny the cold dream
You war-hating man
And learn for yourself
How their cold peace began.)

The mass graves of Europe,
Asia, the East
Are filled with the piss
And the dung of the beast

The bleached bones of victims
Who threw down their arms,
Who gave up their fields,
Who surrendered their farms,

Who assigned traits of wisdom
And love to their foe
Thinking white flags would save them -
Now their shades know

The curse of this earth:
That no peace is won
‘Til after the horrible
Storm of the gun.

(Mourn the gold dream
You peace-starved man;
Sing psalms in your sleep
And weep if you can.
And weep if you can.)

5. Envoi

O My Shepherd, my Shepherd,
Who beckons to his sheep,
And holds out the gold sword
To those who’d give heed;
So many here yearn for death,
So many here cry out for sleep,
That our weak flock divides
And hope can scarce live.

Still here we gather
At the foot of your hill
Where we can but hone
These broken swords and pray
Our sleepers will awake,
That we will win the day.

September - ‘04 – January ‘05