this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war and other disasters
cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, and My Left Wing.
image, book excerpt, and poem below the fold
An Iraqi man cleans off the blood from the stretcher which carried the dead body of the Director General of museums and antiques in the Ministry of Culture Nabil Yasir al Musawi, in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2005. Nabil Yasir al Musawi was killed by unidentified gunmen along with his driver in al Shurta district west of Baghdad while heading to work, Police Captain Talib Thamir said.
(AP Photo/Mohammed Uraibi)
What does it feel like to be shot?
Here is George Orwell’s account of being shot by a sniper in the Spanish Civil War:“Roughly speaking it was the sensation of being at the centre of an explosion. There seemed to be a loud bang and a blinding flash of light all round me, and I felt a tremendous shock – no pain, only a violent shock, such as you get from an electric terminal; with it a sense of utter weakness, a feeling of being stricken and shriveled up to nothing. I fancy you would feel much the same if you were struck by lightning. I knew immediately that I was hit, but because of the seeming bang and flash I thought it was a rifle nearby that had gone off accidentally and shot me. All this happened in a space of time much less than a second. The next moment my knees crumpled up and I was falling, my head hitting the ground with a violent bang which, to my relief, did not hurt. I had a numb, dazed feeling, a consciousness of being very badly hurt, but no pain in the ordinary sense.”
from What Every Person Should Know About War
by Chris Hedges
Chapter 4, Weapons and Wounds
Page 42
The Grain of Sound
by Robert Morgan
A banjo maker in the mountains,
when looking out for wood to carve
an instrument, will walk among
the trees and knock on trunks. He’ll hit
the bark and listen for a note.
A hickory makes the brightest sound;
the poplar has a mellow ease.
But only straightest grain will keep
the purity of tone, the sought —
for depth that makes the licks sparkle.
A banjo has a shining shiver.
Its twangs will glitter like the light
on splashing water. But the face
of banjo is a drum of hide
of cow, or cat, or even skunk.
The hide will magnify the note,
the sad of honest pain, the chill
blood song, lament, confession, haunt,
as tree will sing again from root
and vein and sap and twig in wind
and cat will moan as hand plucks nerve,
picks bone and cell and gut and pricks
the heart as blood will answer blood
and love begins to knock along the grain.
– – –
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