Dawn Over Baghdad
Dawn over Baghdad--
Sky bluing from gray..
Sirens soft as a phone’s ring.
It’s night in Chicago,
guns of thunder
are heard over the lake.
Talk on the TV--
successful decapitation
of Iraqi leadership.
Views through a green filter
of something,
while the sky pearls buildings and water pink
Two birds fly by a minaret.
Baghdad is blue
edged by the sun--like the skin of
innocent places: palms and the soles of the feet.
Have we killed him, yet, the leader?
The commentators, don’t know.
They say our strategy is like a Broadway show.
Cars and a double-decker bus go by quickly.
Talk of exquisite intelligence
fills the air from artful squares
And like weathermen, they point out
spots on a map.
There is no movement along the Tigris.
How early did we learn
the birth of civilization came
from the Tigris-Euphrates region
and we stared at the map:
the ripples labeled mountains…
crayon yellow deserts.
More talk of what we are magical at:
a model of a predator plane
dangles like a spider
on a thread of web.
Now the green screen blurs with smoke.
Flashblinks let us know
the 2,000 lb. bunker buster has been dropped,
on a man they say we really don’t know,
nor do we have his DNA;
so we may not be sure
whether we have killed him or not.
And the war advisors chuckle
like a local news’ team
about making guesses
on how we made the strike,
but they are sure we got
pictures to our youngsters
while they were flying
to hit the right spot:
A blue screen simulation
Of a stingray plane
spurting a comet
at a monopoly board city
while concentric circles
silently spread
and the bomb
counts the floors
as it goes…
In Chicago,
we are afraid to go to bed.
Like the Israelis,
we keep an open channel
through the night.
Sky bluing from gray..
Sirens soft as a phone’s ring.
It’s night in Chicago,
guns of thunder
are heard over the lake.
Talk on the TV--
successful decapitation
of Iraqi leadership.
Views through a green filter
of something,
while the sky pearls buildings and water pink
Two birds fly by a minaret.
Baghdad is blue
edged by the sun--like the skin of
innocent places: palms and the soles of the feet.
Have we killed him, yet, the leader?
The commentators, don’t know.
They say our strategy is like a Broadway show.
Cars and a double-decker bus go by quickly.
Talk of exquisite intelligence
fills the air from artful squares
And like weathermen, they point out
spots on a map.
There is no movement along the Tigris.
How early did we learn
the birth of civilization came
from the Tigris-Euphrates region
and we stared at the map:
the ripples labeled mountains…
crayon yellow deserts.
More talk of what we are magical at:
a model of a predator plane
dangles like a spider
on a thread of web.
Now the green screen blurs with smoke.
Flashblinks let us know
the 2,000 lb. bunker buster has been dropped,
on a man they say we really don’t know,
nor do we have his DNA;
so we may not be sure
whether we have killed him or not.
And the war advisors chuckle
like a local news’ team
about making guesses
on how we made the strike,
but they are sure we got
pictures to our youngsters
while they were flying
to hit the right spot:
A blue screen simulation
Of a stingray plane
spurting a comet
at a monopoly board city
while concentric circles
silently spread
and the bomb
counts the floors
as it goes…
In Chicago,
we are afraid to go to bed.
Like the Israelis,
we keep an open channel
through the night.