MUJCA-NET
 Poetry Corner

The attacks of September 11th managed to temporarily destroy much of what was good about the USA--freedom of speech, a degree of public integrity, respect for human rights, a certain fruitful tolerance and cross-fertilization of religious and ethnic pluralism, a tenacious and fearless love of liberty, and a climate of public opinion marked by widespread reluctance to engage in aggressive war for plunder...not to mention officially-sanctioned torture and sexual abuse.

The 9/11 Neo Con Job dumbed down our minds and flattened our souls. The level of intellectual discourse, both inside and outside of the academy, has dropped so markedly that one wonders whether all the smart folks have emigrated. Or is it something the neocons are putting in the water supply?

In dumbed-down totalitarian states like Hitler's Germany, the old Soviet Union, and the Cheney Regime's nazified USA, poetry (language infused with soulful intelligence) becomes a weapon of resistance. MUJCA-NET invites poets to contribute poems of resistance, especially those addressing the 9/11 New Pearl Harbor. In particular we would like to hear from Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Wiccans, agnostics, Hindus, Taoists, Discordian followers of Malaclypse the Younger, and so on, since we are beginning with poems penned by Muslims.

Kevin Barrett
Co-Founder, MUJCA-NET

* * *

1.  The Interpreter of Desires, Ibn al-`Arabi—tr. Michael Sells

2.  Drought’s Crawling Reptile Army, Kevin Barrett

3.  Poetry by Daniel Kunene

4.  Beat the Dog in the Water by Abu Layl

5.  To the Martyrs of Fallujah by Kevin Barrett

6.  The Tent  by Jelaluddin Rumi
 (from Moyne and Barks, Open Secret, p.34)

7.  The Wounded Poet by Fatna Bellouchi

8.  Le Poète Blessé by Fatna Bellouchi

9.  Ballad of an Irish Muslim by Lakhdar O'Barrett

10.  Pray tell, Pocahontas by Sunny Day

11.  All God's Names by Kathleen Ferrick Rosenblatt 

12.  I Have Learned So Much by Hafiz—tr. by Daniel Ladinsky

13.  Inside Job by Michael D. Morrissey

14.  Noam (for Richard McGinn) by Michael D. Morrissey

15.  A Wild Holy Band by Hafiz—with thanks to Ron Rattner

16.  Who Blew Up America By Amiri Baraka

17.  Silence by Hafiz--tr. by Daniel Ladinsky, (submitted by Ron Rattner)

18.  The Myth of 9/11 by Jerry Mazza

19.  One Desire... by Tina Louise

20.  A Soldier by Doug Soderstrom

21.  Transfiguration  by Doug Soderstrom  

22.  The Ballad of Ladder Five by James Roland Hogue

23.  My Verse 4 of Blowin' in the Wind by Lynn Sandage

24. Why Do You Weep?—Ron Rattner with the Rumi Poem

25.  Under and Overdogs by Jerry Mazza

26.  New York to London Subway by Jerry Mazza

27.  Invisible by Jerry Mazza

28.  Kings and Parasites by Percy Shelley —
through Eagle Strong Voice (Kevin Annett)

29.  The Fall of America Redux by Jerry Mazza

30)  The Miracle on 34th Street by Jerry Mazza


* * *

1)  Ibn al-`Arabi (1165-1240) from Tarjuman al-Ashwaq
(The Interpreter of Desires—tr. Michael Sells)

Wonder,
a garden among the flames!
My heart can take on
any form:
a meadow for gazelles,
a cloister for monks,

For the idols, sacred ground,
Ka`aba for the circling pilgrim,
the tables of the Torah,
the scrolls of the Qur’an

My creed is love;
wherever its caravan turns along the way,
love is my religion and my faith.

* * *

Introduction to Zahf al-Jafaf

I wrote this poem in mid-August of 2001, less than a month before September 11th. It hadn’t rained in weeks and my garden was drying up; I was following the progress of the terrible drought that had been devastating much of the Middle East for two or three years, and the terrible colonialism and imperialism that has been ravaging the region since Napoleon invaded Egypt 200 years ago. I felt something in the air, and wrote it down. Zahf al-Jafaf has been published in The Book of Hope (Iceland), Waters of West Virginia magazine, Waters of Wisconsin Magazine, and the Journal of the Wisconsin Academy of Arts and Sciences.
--Kevin Barrett

2)  Zahf al-Jafáf (Drought’s Crawling Reptile Army)

It rained
and rained
and rained
And suddenly stopped.
The earth echoed for awhile.
Then was silence.
The static hiss of drought
Rattled its snaky husk,
Dragged its desiccated belly
Toward our town,
Wrapped itself around our throats
And plunged its fangs
Deep into a refreshing well of blood.
One drop escaped.
It trickled to the earth,
Tickling the parched grass with its red
And silver tongue.
Faint laughter from the dusty graves
Of our forgotten ancestors arose,
And segued into echoes
Of faint
Distant
Thunder.
--Kevin Barrett

* * *

3)  Poetry

 by Daniel Kunene

 (world-class poet, translator and teacher, Professor Kunene is the first Christian
 to appear in MUJCA-NET's Poetry Corner

the pit of almost-hell

they had to believe in miracles
if Christ could turn stone into bread
and snake into fish
then surely he will turn the dry dust of Dimbaza
into water

they had to believe in miracles
in god’s mysterious ways
since he allowed the reincarnated hitlers
to wrench them out of their homes

they, the discarded millions from the
sprawling black townships of south africa
dumped on barren land
dust choking them

had to believe in miracles
digging rods in hand
pick and shovel
even naked hands
like moles

hoping for subterranean streams
thirsty

bare backs baking in the sun
the only moisture their sweat

but they dig
till ankle-deep

and still they dig
till knee-deep

and relentlessly they dig
till waist-deep

nothing at three feet
nothing at four
nothing at five

inch by inch they dig
one and two
and three and four and five and six and seven and eight and nine
and
ten and eleven

god, we dare not go one inch deeper

Give us water!

* * *

4) Beat the Dog in the Water

 by Abu Layl

Iron shirted horsemen loose trotting lackies
Snapping snarling curs drive us into the sea
The warm swells are our sanctuary
Come dogs! Come
Swim to us our throats are bared
Visions of the masters' favors
lure them into deeper water
Come dogs! come!
Where we can stand but you cannot
Strong hands will hold you beneath the waves
Angry Templars stand upon the shore
Plaintive whistling cannot bring back dead dogs
The Believers are an ocean

* * *

Published on Sunday, November 7, 2004 by Agence France Presse
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1107-02.htm
Holy War: Evangelical Marines Prepare to Battle Barbarians

5)  To the Martyrs of Fallujah

 by Kevin Barrett

“Think not that those who are slain in the path of God are dead; nay, they are alive, rejoicing in the presence
 of their Lord, and in the grace bestowed upon them.” –Quran 3:169

“Mercenaries are useless, disunited, with nothing to keep them in a battle other than a meager wage, which is just
 enough to make them want to kill for you, but not enough to make them want to die for you.” – John Cale

Overture: Earsplitting death-metal
Jesus rock whips up storm
Troopers into a killing frenzy.

The horror begins.

First came the hospital.
They blasted their way in,
Corralled terrified doctors,
Then went from room to room
Shooting patients in the head.

Wave after wave of vultures
Shriek from metal-gray skies
Bombing houses
Where terrified children
Cower in corners
Of incipient rubble.

Homes blasted and shelled
Into shattered wasteland,
Kids lurch from ruins
Oozing blood and tears.

Unhurried snipers
Pick them off
One
By
One

One way
To make them
Stop crying.

Lone survivor stumbles
From the rubble.
A rose blossoms
On her forehead.

Corpses fill the street.
Dogs gnaw the surfeit
Fragrant banquet
Rotting youth-flesh

Heroic fighters
Outgunned and outnumbered
More than hold their own against

Poor little Marines
Exuding rankest fear:
A slime-trail of shitstench
As they flee
Opponents who shoot back.

But stalwart snipers
Continue killing children
From safe rooftops

And brave soldiers,
Strutting in their jackboots,
Trample defenseless mosques
To execute the wounded.

All the firepower in the world
All the evil in the world
All the sickness in the world
All the cowardice in the world
All the naked greed in the world
All the cruelty in the world
All the stupidity in the world

Cannot erase
The courage
Of the martyrs
Of Fallujah

The victory is theirs
In this life
And the next

* * *

Jelaluddin Rumi was born in Balkh, in what is now Afghanistan, on September 30 1207. As a young man he and his family fled in the face of the Mongol invasion. He lived his life in the shadow of the Mongol hordes that laid waste to Islamic civilization—a blow from which it has yet to fully recover. Twentieth-century Sufis of Afghanistan and Central Asia, for their part, have lived in the shadow of the barbaric invasions of English, Russian, and American imperialists, and the lunatic fundamentalists the imperialists have spawned. The following poem expresses the Sufi idea that the heart remains “a garden amidst the flames” (Ibn ‘Arabí) that remains the only true site of knowledge amidst the sound and fury of history.

6)  The Tent

by Jelaluddin Rumi
 (from Moyne and Barks, Open Secret, p.34)


Outside, the freezing desert night.
This other night inside grows warm, kindling.
Let the landscape be covered with thorny crust.
We have a soft garden in here.
The continents blasted,
cities and little towns, everything
become a scorched, blackened ball.

The news we hear is full of grief for that future,
but the real news inside here
is there’s no news at all.


* * *

7)  The Wounded Poet

by Fatna Bellouchi

Beneath the vastness of your heart
Reverberate love’s reasons
And drive out evil humors
From the great gods and their heavens.

I shouldn’t have to shout for you
To hear me, nor laugh for you
To understand, I’m satisfied
To be, and share this barren life.

And as for me, what will I see
If you deem yourself God or prophet,
King or prince? I’ll only look into your eyes,
And forget all but their fire.

Withdraw! you winds of reason
And philosophies that run through
All the ages and the windows of our houses
Come, approach, love soft and shattering.

Come! to us now the role
Of all sharing, all together
Of screaming, miming, chasing out
Of breaking, being weary, wearing out.

Solitude-loving love, somewhere,
Have you nowhere the heart
To speak to whom this look
Of madmen, flowering lovers

I’ll remain in this my heart
Of children, and withdraw myself
I’ll roll myself in languors
To protect myself a smile

O, if only the god
Should wish to wake me
This my secret, better
Would I know to live from dreaming

I look at the sun and moon
I speak to plains and mountains
I ask the dunes and all their sands
Who in all this can feel my pains?

The grace of gods, ubiquitous
Does not lack on this earth
I seek refuge and I hear all
In my soul, war is over.

* * *

8)  Le Poète Blessé

by Fatna Bellouchi

Sous l’ampleur de ton coeur
Vibrent les raisons de l’amour
Et chassent les mauvaises humeurs
Des cieux, et des grands dieux

Ne fallait-il pas que je crie
Pour que tu m’entendes et que je rie
Pour que tu comprennes je suis contente
D’être, de nous partager cette vie néante

Que verrai-je moi, si tu te prononces
Dieu, prophète, roi ou prince
Je regarderai dans tex yeux
Je ne me souviendrai que leurs feux

Va! vent de la raison
Et les philosophies traversant
Les âges et les fenêtres des maisons
Vient, approche amour doux et cassant

Viens! à nous maintenant le rôle
De partager tout, tout ensemble
De crier, de mimer, de chasser
De casser, de se lasser, de se laisser

Amour solitaire quelque part
Naurais-tu nulle le coeur
De t’addresser à qui ce regard
De foux, d’amoureux en fleurs

Je reste dans mon coeur
D’enfants, et de me retire
Je m’enroule sur mes langueurs
Pour me protéger un sourire

O, si seulement le dieu
Voudrait me révéler
Ce secret en moi, mieux
Je saurais vivre de rêver

Je regarde le soleil et la lune
Je parle aux montagnes et aux plaines
Je demande aux sables et aux dunes
Qui d’entre cela comprendrait mes peines

La grâce des dieux partout
Ne manque pas sur cette terre
Je me refuge et j’entends tout
Dans mon âme, finie cette guerre

* * *

From time ta time me beloved kaffir friends have the bad habit of askin' me:  "Kevin," they say, "What would
 such a kindhearted and openminded chap as yerself be doin' convertin' to the Saracen heresy?"
 I explain that we Irish Muslims hail from a proud and ancient tradition that's rich in folktale
 and song. So 'ere's a little ditty I sometimes sing to me bairns ta keep them infarmed
 aboot their glahrious Islamic Hibernian heritage

9)  Ballad of an Irish Muslim

by Lakhdar O'Barrett

I was born in County Kerry with a Guiness in me hand
That thick white foam washed o’er me like the waves wash o’er the sand
One great black wave broke on me brain and washed me sins (sense) away
And I became a Muslim... on that glahrious drunken day...but now...

Refrain:
Me drinkin’ days are done—hamdullilah!
Me drinkin’ days are done—insha’allah!
Raise your glass to this Irish Muslim
Whose drinkin’ days are done.

I joined the Sally Rovers and I had a glahrious time
Captured meself four English wives and a hundred concubines
Took me wives and treasure and built a palace in old Salee
From whence I turned toward Mecca...and prayed five times each day

And I prayed: me drinkin’ days are done—hamdullilah!
Me drinkin’ days are done—insha’allah!
Raise your glass to this Irish Muslim
Whose drinkin’ days are done.

But one dark day...
I was captured by the English, thrown in an English jail
They beat me with their paddy sticks until my heart did fail
They threw me in the River Thames and left me there for dead
But when I floated by a pub I sniffed (sniff-sniff)...and lifted up me head

And I said: Me drinkin’ days aren’t done—not quite yet
Me drinkin’ days aren’t done—no such luck ye limeys!
Raise yer glass to this Irish Muslim...whose drinkin’ days aren’t done

They offered me some Guiness and I drank up their supplies
When I told ‘em I was Muslim, why they couldn’t believe their eyes
The said, “What sort of Muslim is this who drinks a dozen pints?”
I said “Ye should’ve seen me drink before I saw the light!”

Me true drinkin’ days are done (ye call this drinkin’?)
Me drinkin’ days are done (ha! t’ain’t drinkin’, this!)
Raise yer glass to this Irish Muslim...whose drinkin’ days are done (fer all practical porposes)

Now there are two verses in the Koran concernin’ alchohol
One of ‘em says “don’t drink too much,” the other says “don’t drink atall”
One verse is fer the Irish and the other’s fer the rest
And though I’m too drunk to know which is which, I’m afraid that I can guess

Me drinkin’ days are done—hamdullilah!
Me drinkin’ days are done—insha’allah!
Raise your glass to this Irish Muslim
Whose drinkin’ days are done.

* * *

10)  Pray Tell, Pocahontas—Sunny Day

                             I

Remanufactured history channel contest
ADHD episode number 243
Substitute for 9/11 cosmic quarter peep show digest

                             II

Eyes raise to behold Liberty.
Eagles soaring on a nationalistic thermal ascent,
Nature’s subjugation plan—
Birth and progeny,
Regurgitation.,
Holding young dependent,
Exploiting care for immortality in a home of symbolic trust.

Masked thieves, attending the fallen eaglets, below the nesting,
Have a different religious ritual
(Washing before sharing),
Teaching the babes
New indoctrination instincts—

Guile and laughter,
Dark vegetarian delights,
Sweet corn raids by moonlight,
Looking up instead of down.
No craggy cliff views,
No distorted reality remoteness,

No icons seeking Percy approval,
Meeko dispelled them.
Not unlike common street folk, finding shelter, raising babies,
Natural leadership, borrowed from organic order
Goes unrecognized and undefined.
 
                         III

Charlie Sheen animates the future’s trial
Revolution DVD style
As if peons understood poetry justice
Like us

* * *

11)  All God's Names

                                                       by Kathleen Ferrick Rosenblatt                                                            

What will I call you today, Lord?
Allah, Yahweh, Dios, Apollo, Indra, Holy Ghost?
What languages are you speaking today?

It is said that you are Creator and Linguist of all planets.
You speak Mandarin, Nahuatl, Sanskrit, Pharsi,
Latin, Arabic, and all 300 dialects in India.
For every culture--- a sacred language,
To speak ceremonies, formulas,
prayers to invoke you.

Certainly the Lord of the Universe is just as sacred
in Arabic as in English.
If we believe in your omnipresence,
Why can't we accept that the You is You, in everything,
Everywhere, in all times---with Moses, and Mohammed.

Surely you would have contacted someone in North America.
Why not Black Elk or Mormon Joseph Smith?
We say you are all-powerful, and yet,
We can't accept your sending a messenger
to any culture but our own.

In our superiority, we reject pantheists as primitive,
Those who feel your presence in the stars and oceans.
The Native American rites were so innately spiritual,
Honoring your presence in every blade of grass,
Yet we called them "pagan". 

Can't we all be part of "the Grand Old Religion,"
"The Chosen Few," or "the One True Church" in this larger sense? 
After all, our entire planet spins out from your finger.
Did you set the world in motion with one spark of astral fusion?
The big bang vibrates still as we blast through space.

Are we not linked tightly enough in our DNA
to be woven together as a blanket,
A sacred garment around the earth---
Parishes, conclaves, synagogues, minarets,
chuppas, stuppas, Eucharist, Kabah, Torah,
Calvary, Mount Ararat, Mount Sinai,
the Mound of the Rock, Mount Merou,
All the holy mountains of the earth?

We breathe in, "inspirer",
to pull in YOU, Espiritu,
to inspire ourselves with this cosmic energy,
Chi, prana, mana, this You.
Einstein says we are 98% empty space filled with
bubbles of energy. We can feel this energy is You.

So we reach out to thank you for having touched
All our cultures in such personal ways through time,
making each group feel like your special favorites.
We thank you for allowing us to know your names.
 

12)  I Have Learned So Much —
Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky in the book
*The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master*

I have learned so much from God
That I can no longer call myself
a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of itself with me
that I can no longer call myself
a man, a woman, an angel
or even pure soul.

Love has befriended me so completely
It has turned to ash and freed me
of every concept and image
my mind has ever known.
 

13)  Inside Job—
Michael D. Morrissey, June 2006

1.
The somnambular peregrinations that we like to call the life of the mind
are seldom interrupted by ideas.
 
Still, it happens. 
 
A butterfly flaps its wings in Java, causing an earthquake in the mind. 
 
A bug awakens in some dell of memory and becomes a colossus,
straddling the continental lobes. 
 
The faintest whistle, growing unheard like the corn,
suddenly house-high, bursts like a banshee out of the blue-blown sky
and finds us standing in the tracks.  
 
2.
Why weren’t the windows closed on Elm Street?
How can a bullet do gymnastics?
How could a caveman beat a multi-billion-dollar air force?
How could those buildings fall straight down?
 
We think inside our minds how it could be
that so many could die so strangely
until one tells us, screaming through our deafness
“We didn’t die.  You did.”
 
What are we but ghosts, waiting to be born?
 

14)  Noam for Richard McGinn—
Michael D. Morrissey, Aug. 23, 2006

I thought I knew what to do with my anger
and that was to stuff it.
Let him lie. He has a family to protect.
Who am I to judge?
But it keeps coming back, like shit that won't go down.
"My friend John Deutch."
"No evidence of high-level conspiracy."
Why can't he just keep his mouth shut?
Let's talk about Minimalism.
Then he can convince me of how smart he is
and how dumb I am
but not like this.
He is not an idiot. It just can't be.
But then he is lying.
And.
Let it lie, I say again.
I know this is right.
They can kill him.
They can break his daughter's kneecaps.
They can destroy him in a thousand ways.
They wouldn't hesitate. They've got it planned.
All he's got to do is say the wrong thing, or the right thing, and he's gone.
Gone the way of millions. That's how high the stakes are.
That's the investment, they will say.
It would be insane, a sacrilege, in fact, to stop now.
Still, there it is.
That little piece of shit that won't go down.
"If only there was some evidence..."
I flush and flush. It stays.
What do I have to do, eat it?
Wait till it dissolves?
Even if it does, it will still have been there
even when we're not.
What a legacy.
 
www.mdmorrissey.info
 

15)  A Wild Holy Band

Your breath is a sacred clock, my dear--
Why not use it to keep time with God's Name?

And if your feet are ever mobile
Upon this ancient drum, the earth,
O do not let your precious movements
Come to naught.

Let your steps dance silently
To the rhythm of the Beloved's Name!

My fingers and my hands
Never move through empty space,
For there are
Invisible golden lute strings all around,
Sending Resplendent Chords
Throughout the Universe.

I hear the voice
Of every creature and plant,
Every world and sun and galaxy--
Singing the Beloved's Name!

I have awakened to find violin and cello,
Flute, harp, and trumpet,
Cymbal, bell and drum--
All within me!
From head to toe, every part of my body
Is chanting and clapping!

Hafiz,
The beloved has made you
Such a luminous Man!

For with constant remembrance of God,
One's whole body will become
A Wonderful and Wild,
Holy Band!

--- Hafiz ---

16)  Who Blew Up America

 By Amiri Baraka

Somebody Blew up America

They say its some terrorist,
some barbaric A Rab,
in Afghanistan
It wasn't our American terrorists
It wasn't the Klan or the Skin heads
Or the them that blows up nigger
Churches, or reincarnates us on Death Row
It wasn't Trent Lott
Or David Duke or Giuliani
Or Schundler, Helms retiring

It wasn't
The gonorrhea in costume
The white sheet diseases
That have murdered black people
Terrorized reason and sanity
Most of humanity, as they pleases

They say (who say?)
Who do the saying
Who is them paying
Who tell the lies
Who in disguise
Who had the slaves
Who got the bux out the Bucks

Who got fat from plantations
Who genocided Indians
Tried to waste the Black nation

Who live on Wall Street
The first plantation
Who cut your nuts off
Who rape your ma
Who lynched your pa

Who got the tar, who got the feathers
Who had the match, who set the fires
Who killed and hired
Who say they God & still be the Devil

Who the biggest only
Who the most goodest
Who do Jesus resemble

Who created everything
Who the smartest
Who the greatest
Who the richest
Who say you ugly and they the goodlookingest

Who define art
Who define science

Who made the bombs
Who made the guns

Who bought the slaves, who sold them

Who called you them names
Who say Dahmer wasn't insane

Who? Who? Who?

Who stole Puerto Rico
Who stole the Indies, the Philippines, Manhattan
Australia & The Hebrides
Who forced opium on the Chinese

Who own them buildings
Who got the money
Who think you funny
Who locked you up
Who own the papers

Who owned the slave ship
Who run the army

Who the fake president
Who the ruler
Who the banker

Who? Who? Who?

Who own the mine
Who twist your mind
Who got bread
Who need peace
Who you think need war

Who own the oil
Who do no toil
Who own the soil
Who is not a nigger
Who is so great ain't nobody bigger

Who own this city

Who own the air
Who own the water

Who own your crib
Who rob and steal and cheat and murder
and make lies the truth
Who call you uncouth

Who live in the biggest house
Who do the biggest crime
Who go on vacation anytime

Who killed the most niggers
Who killed the most Jews
Who killed the most Italians
Who killed the most Irish
Who killed the most Africans
Who killed the most Japanese
Who killed the most Latinos

Who? Who? Who?

Who own the ocean

Who own the airplanes
Who own the malls
Who own television
Who own radio

Who own what ain't even known to be owned
Who own the owners that ain't the real owners

Who own the suburbs
Who suck the cities
Who make the laws

Who made Bush president
Who believe the confederate flag need to be flying
Who talk about democracy and be lying

Who the Beast in Revelations
Who 666
Who know who decide
Jesus get crucified

Who the Devil on the real side
Who got rich from Armerican genocide

Who the biggest terrorist
Who change the bible
Who killed the most people
Who do the most evil
Who don't worry about survival

Who have the colonies
Who stole the most land
Who rule the world
Who say they good but only do evil
Who the biggest executioner

Who? Who? Who?

Who own the oil
Who want more oil
Who told you what you think that later you find out a lie

Who? Who? Who?

Who found Bin Laden, maybe they Satan
Who pay the CIA,
Who knew the bomb was gonna blow
Who know why the terrorists
Learned to fly in Florida, San Diego

Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion
And cracking they sides at the notion

Who need fossil fuel when the sun ain't goin' nowhere

Who make the credit cards
Who get the biggest tax cut
Who walked out of the Conference
Against Racism
Who killed Malcolm, Kennedy & his Brother
Who killed Dr King, Who would want such a thing?
Are they linked to the murder of Lincoln?

Who invaded Grenada
Who made money from apartheid
Who keep the Irish a colony
Who overthrow Chile and Nicaragua later

Who killed David Sibeko, Chris Hani,
the same ones who killed Biko, Cabral,
Neruda, Allende, Che Guevara, Sandino,

Who killed Kabila, the ones who wasted Lumumba, Mondlane,
Betty Shabazz, Die, Princess Di, Ralph Featherstone,
Little Bobby

Who locked up Mandela, Dhoruba, Geronimo,
Assata, Mumia, Garvey, Dashiell Hammett, Alphaeus Hutton

Who killed Huey Newton, Fred Hampton,
Medgar Evers, Mikey Smith, Walter Rodney,
Was it the ones who tried to poison Fidel
Who tried to keep the Vietnamese Oppressed

Who put a price on Lenin's head

Who put the Jews in ovens,
and who helped them do it
Who said "America First"
and ok'd the yellow stars

Who killed Rosa Luxembourg, Liebneckt
Who murdered the Rosenbergs
And all the good people iced,
tortured, assassinated, vanished

Who got rich from Algeria, Libya, Haiti,
Iran, Iraq, Saudi, Kuwait, Lebanon,
Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine,

Who cut off peoples hands in the Congo
Who invented Aids
Who put the germs
In the Indians' blankets
Who thought up "The Trail of Tears"

Who blew up the Maine
& started the Spanish American War
Who got Sharon back in Power
Who backed Batista, Hitler, Bilbo,
Chiang kai Chek

Who decided Affirmative Action had to go
Reconstruction, The New Deal,
The New Frontier, The Great Society,

Who do Tom Ass Clarence Work for
Who doo doo come out the Colon's mouth
Who know what kind of Skeeza is a Condoleeza
Who pay Connelly to be a wooden negro
Who give Genius Awards to Homo Locus
Subsidere

Who overthrew Nkrumah, Bishop,
Who poison Robeson,
who try to put DuBois in Jail
Who frame Rap Jamil al Amin, Who frame the Rosenbergs,
Garvey,
The Scottsboro Boys,
The Hollywood Ten

Who set the Reichstag Fire

Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed
Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers
To stay home that day
Why did Sharon stay away?

Who? Who? Who?

Explosion of Owl the newspaper say
The devil face cd be seen

Who make money from war
Who make dough from fear and lies
Who want the world like it is
Who want the world to be ruled by imperialism and national
oppression and terror violence, and hunger and poverty.

Who is the ruler of Hell?
Who is the most powerful

Who you know ever
Seen God?

But everybody seen
The Devil

Like an Owl exploding
In your life in your brain in your self
Like an Owl who know the devil
All night, all day if you listen, Like an Owl
Exploding in fire. We hear the questions rise
In terrible flame like the whistle of a crazy dog

Like the acid vomit of the fire of Hell
Who and Who and WHO who who
Whoooo and Whooooooooooooooooooooo!
 

17)  SILENCE
by Hafiz—

tr. Daniel Ladinsky (submitted by Ron Rattner)

A day of Silence
Can be a pilgrimage in itself. 

A day of Silence
Can help you listen

To the Soul play
In marvelous lute and drum. 

Is not most talking
A crazed defense of a crumbling fort? 

I thought we came here
To surrender in Silence,

To yield to Light and Happiness,
To Dance within

In celebration of Love's Victory! 

--Hafiz   'I Heard God Laughing'
 

18)  THE MYTH OF 9/11
 by Jerry Mazza

Disgrace, the government

that gave us 9/11,

murdered its citizens

to incite a war against

Islam, covering do-nothing

response of NORAD with drills

of terrorists hijacking liners,

simultaneous happenings

filling radar screens

with false blips, sucking fighter

planes to exercises,

North America up

to Canada, leaving four jet

teams to cover attackers,

arriving too late, liners

flown by remote controls

per Global Hawk-like systems

(developed for Pentagon

by Defense Advanced Research

Projects Agency DARPA),

over-riding transponders

so no pilot’s hands

or automatic pilot

could guide them, Tower flights

with doubles departing two gates,

making more smoke-screens,

with military planes

masked as commercial

while the Towers taken

not by fire but explosions

top to bottom,

noted by firemen

and engineers round the world,

two rocking spikes

that hit the Richter scales,

third spike for Tower 7,

seismic evidence reported

Columbia University

Lamont-Doherty Earth

Observatory on Hudson

River in Palisades,

recorded before collapses,

crashes diversionary

attacks while Towers taken

by explosion, burying truth,

like steel shreds of gone buildings

simmering under rubble,

scooped and dumped in Great Kills

Staten Island, recycled

as scrap to bury evidence

deep conspiracy,

America, dirty business

led by Cheney and darkside

moles hidden throughout

NORAD, the CIA

and FBI, to give them

said reason attack Afghanistan

and later Iraq

for oil and the power it brings,

the power to rule the world,

seeking their old patsy

O.B. Laden, Agency payroll,

1978 on

fighting the Russian “atheists,”

his Mujahadeen bought

and paid for, armed and trained

by Central Intelligence,

Saudi’s and Pakistan’s too…

the Pentagon hit by

a Global Hawk remote-

flown jet craft bearing missile

exploding on contact, leaving

mere 18-foot wide hole,

no 757 fuselage,

125 foot wingspan,

75 foot tail, baggage, body

parts, an empty lawn,

the exit hole just 8-feet

wide, explosions again

not fire causing hole,

Flight 77 vanished

to Reagan, bottom of sea,

some distant hidden airport,

like the other planes,

hijackers with lifted names

vanished in air, found living

Mid East countries, all

an intricate hoax, cruel joke

played on America’s belief,

and that’s how the world goes out,

not whimpering but with bangs

of demolition bombs,

followed by phony anthrax

made in a government lab

in Maryland, the terrorists

the government,

the government the enemy

of the American people,

over and out, way out,

beyond a reasonable doubt.

19)  One Desire... by Tina Louise