I.

My countrymen,
let us reflect. Cast a mirror in our way,
stop the hooting of horns
and the printer hum,
hold the pitch and turn down the TV volume.
PLEASE.

The war is on did you know,
in a desert far away.
the madman's den and the Rabbit Hole's End,
turn everything upside down and backwards,
jump through the slide and see
how far one can go.
eventually it will all come back
to Us,
to him and her
and jane and joe,
to the collective we and the separated we,
to give way to the unspoken Conversation
and the story
of those who don't know or know it all too well.

II.

My countrymen,
open your one lazy eye
look upon a product of well-wishes
and patriotic half-slurs,
Cast your gaze inward and farther away
than your nose,
Perhaps try to understand
the crazed man home from a war,
the fight in his eyes,
flight in his walk,
tangles and cobwebs where there was
once thoughts and Coherence.
the questions unasked,
unanswered
of what it is to Err or Glorify
and to listen to the taunts or touts of countrymen
who salute or spit,
or to those who ignore.
Picture the tumultuous street of passer-byers
tilting their heads
holding their chests and mouths tight,
"old man you stink!,"
Raggedy-Anne in jeans and a plaid and thank you sir
for your arm and Sanity
but Common Sense and the rest of us
stopped caring about you
long before you thought you came home.

III.

Or countrymen,
turn your wide-eyes disbelieving stares
to another corner of a S-O-C-I-E-T-Y
pulled and pushed under the tidal
wave slapping brutal bruises of a war.
Put the grimace and pity away and look past our
Misconceptions.
humble for a minute and ears open for two more,
look see another crooked piece in this Puzzle
of our plastic and poetic world,
the wife, the brave grave wife,
shining smiling next to her soldier boy-man.
he, a child but a child-not
and she with child
and a mind-full of what-ifs and bake-a-thons
and nights filled with
wide eyes waiting
yet the fright and sight of her neighbor, twisted face,
red face taunting
"those war-monging motherfuckers",
let us stamp on your car and throw dirt on your shoes,
old beat up station wagon torn apart on some
peacenik Californian road by peace loving rioters,
bent drunk on a violent rage for peace's sake.
a smile faded and possibly frozen,
her boy-man's body returned to her draped
in the good ol flag
and thank you mam and
CONGRATULATIONS it's a girl
but we won the war
now a child but a child not,
not anymore.

IV.

And countrymen,
do not forget to look deeper
than a four-dollar latte. To pierce the fabric
of our Accomplishments
and to look at those who S-U-F-F-E-R
a non-sufferer's fate.
Look out and in at those that fall
trapped into the Melee
by a birthing pain and a calling card.
Breathe deep and remember
the mother, mother may we
take your girl and boy on our ships and planes,
and yes, sir and yes, SIR,
her pride falls into her smiles
and uptilted chin but with a hunted
look in the eye.
She casually furtively flips channels,
CNN, FOX and MTV,
anything for a glimpse; a peer into Something
without light
like an eye in the dark
poking around for something lost,
bump and scratch
and there you are my son
tanked up and razing down a sand-trapped road,
embedded reporters running behind
to tell the Truth tell the Truth,
and "salamalekum ummah,
looked what I have learned!!"
and Relief that seeps inside cracking open
every door and window
like a lemonade on Ju-ly Four.
and tell daddy he's coming home
to me
to my cooking
to the flag raised proud on my door and on my car,
to my little America that I built
in my backyard.

V.

Or most important my countrymen,
uncurl your lips and your fists,
take off the comfort and Adornment
of a Wonderful Life,
pull the ostrich-like head filled with
CDs and cell phone business meetings
out of the proverbial American sand and soil.
Put your foot into his desert-style
issued Boot
and walk walk into his world.
Just try my countrymen
to imagine him and her,
the faceless soldier out there
with bug-eyed goggles
and a trailing click click slick gun and boots,
we all know him and know him not at all.
hear the story and shake his hand
some who hate him and Disagree and others
who stand Proud,
stand fast, behind him, them,
the marching columns.
him out there in never never land,
never never could we know,
never never walk in his shoes to u-n-d-e-r-g-o
and realize
the Wait with the poised gun
flashing in his eye,
A relative and constant figure
throughout all and every Time.
The sight and stench of an Enemy perched
on the ground
looking out across the war plain,
bodies scattered and fallen and the thought
the thought
Inshallah for my bed
and a shower
and a uniform without gunholes
and a medal and nod of the head,
for the salute and possibly the utterance
of sir and thank you
and thank you again for bleeding for the rest of us
and shukran habibi for saving our lives
now get out and let us fight all over again!

VI.

and us, my countrymen
sitting here in our homes and cars and bars,
led down this path to a reality
we all know
and will live through again.
We judge,
flatten our hearts and hurtle the slander
of Opposition
or release tears and the words of Encouragement,
some of us too busy to sit out there on the line,
too busy to deal with their fear and fight
and dirt and grit
the slinking pit of humanity that they crawled into
and out of
maybe just to give one person the Choice
and a better Day.

And don't turn your head boy-you so-called
Ideal standard-
and lay your body down on some street.
Peace peace is only a dream.
Does peace live in your hate-filled wail,
your googly-eyed sneer as the Flag
is raised high?
We watch American Idol and they watch mujehedin
and retreating firefights and lobbed grenades,
guns pricked and ready and
bombs with our names etched into the sides.

and Right
or Wrong.
who owns that? Who wants that?!
who needs it anyway,
because it does not exist out there
between the blade and a heated Earth.
our girls and boys are in the desert
dancing and dying with bullets,
pulling strangers from a 20-year torture chamber
the scars fresh on their expression,
spitting up over a Hitler-like sheikh,
ripping apart his bronzed head
to reveal the worms
and dust and blood guts that he used
to write his name
into everyone's darkest dreams.
You see!
You see!
It's nearly over-this path,
The marching is almost silent,
MAYBE.

A growing consciousness inside me screams
"I am ashamed my countrymen,
ashamed"
turning up your noses at the man
in the street who knows more the price of freedom
paid in blood and limbs than any of you,
bent by a war and misery
so you and we all could learn
about HISTORY and PHILOSOHPY.
my countrymen, you straddle that fence.
anything to believe that Opinion and Judgment
are hurt free
anything for yourselves,
to sleep at night without the glaring eyes
that mumble guilt sinking into that tiny hole
of Consciousness and selflessness.
But know it and know it well
that they hurt
like steel bars
rapped against white-straining knuckles.

so shame on you, my countrymen
for giving up and laying down
on a street in San Fran or in our
CAPITOL
and cry, "we want peace and Justice!"
Call me a liar but do I not own Freedom
because one I may not know all that well
walked a line
covered in bullet holes and stinking flesh
from Normandy to Berlin and from Kuwait out into
the great void of a desert?
Do I not sit and drink my coffee
because the gun-worn hands of some men
who stood between us
and a wall of Boogeymen?

Who am I
or you to look with distrust or disgust
or to cower and call Blame
to men and women and boy-men and girl-women
walking through a WAR
in your Gucci Prada shoes?
Don't dare cry "peace, I love mother America"
until you sit like a trapped rat
in a rat-packed-sardine-can-Tank,
or smelled the stench of sweat
and frozen smiles;
until you have held the hand
of a dead man draped in red, white and blue,
your daughter or brother
or lover, mother, father, friend, even foe and passerby,
stranger to your sight but not to Us All.
Don't turn your head countrymen,
shake a fist and then fly the flag
until you taste the desert burnt
into your tongue
and swallowed whole into your belly.

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