“[I]n times of crisis it’s interesting that people don’t turn to the novel or say, ‘We should all go out to a movie,’ or ‘Ballet would help us.’ It’s always poetry. What we want to hear is a human voice speaking directly in our ear.”

Billy Collins, U.S. Poet Laureate (2001-2003) speaking to the New York Times, as quoted in The Dead Beat by Marilyn Johnson

this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war and other disasters

we honor courage in all its forms

cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, and My Left Wing.

april is national poetry month

eight images and poem below the fold


Residents help to put a body of a bakery employee, into an ambulance, in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, March 24, 2006. Two unidentified gunmen broke into a bakery and killed two employees, as suspected insurgents killed one policeman and wounded three others in a drive-by shooting in west Baghdad Friday morning, police said.
(AP Photo/ Mohammed Hato)


ATTENTION EDITORS – VISUALS COVERAGE OF SCENES OF INJURY OR DEATH The bodies of slain Iraqi men lie in the morgue outside Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad March 25, 2006. The bodies of ten men, their hands and feet bound, were found late Friday in the Khudra area of western Baghdad and taken to Yarmouk Hospital, police said. They’d been strangled and tortured, according to hospital sources.
REUTERS/Ali Jasim


Iraqis attempt to identify the bodies of their relatives, killed in a bomb explosion, in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, March 25, 2006. A bomb exploded in a booth for traffic police in north Baghdad Saturday, killing four civilians and wounding five,including a traffic policeman, police said.
(AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)


ATTENTION EDITORS – VISUALS COVERAGE OF SCENES OF INJURY OR DEATH A man looks at the body of a slain relative at the morgue outside Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad March 25, 2006. The bodies of ten men, their hands and feet bound, were found late Friday in the Khudra area of western Baghdad and taken to Yarmouk Hospital, police said. They’d been strangled and tortured, according to hospital sources.
REUTERS/Ali Jasim


An Iraqi man sits next to the body of his brother killed in drive-by shooting,in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, March 25, 2006. Retaliatory killings among Shiite and Sunni Muslims have become increasingly common in the capital since the Feb. 22 bombing of an important Shiite shrine that unleashed the rash of sectarian violence.
(AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)


ATTENTION EDITORS – VISUALS COVERAGE OF SCENES OF INJURY OR DEATH Relatives lift the body of a slain relative into a coffin at the morgue outside Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad March 25, 2006. The bodies of ten men, their hands and feet bound, were found late Friday in the Khudra area of western Baghdad and taken to Yarmouk Hospital, police said. They’d been strangled and tortured, according to hospital sources.
REUTERS/Ali Jasim


ATTENTION EDITORS – VISUALS COVERAGE OF SCENES OF DEATH AND INJURY An Iraqi man grieves at the funeral of a relative killed by a bomb explosion in the town of Khalis, 30 km (18 miles) northwest of Baquba, March 24, 2006. A bomb placed near a wall outside a Sunni mosque exploded as worshippers were leaving midday prayers on Friday, killing five people and wounding 17, police said.
REUTERS/Helmiy al-Azawi


Relatives lift the coffin of a slain relative at the morgue outside Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad March 25, 2006. The bodies of ten men, their hands and feet bound, were found late Friday in the Khudra area of western Baghdad and taken to Yarmouk Hospital, police said. They’d been strangled and tortured, according to hospital sources.
REUTERS/Ali Jasim

Thinking of Warsaw
by Hugh Seidman

Simpler to throw a rock at an historical tank than to sift the rubble?
Simpler to sign the petition than to stand with some against others?

The sniper fires his rifle at his father’s father’s father’s father’s father.
Each night–as if impregnable–chain, dead bolt.

Some die who are silent, shamed.
Some die who will not change.

Sometimes, as if anew, I learn greed.
Nursing-home doctor cuts good eyes, bills Medicaid for cataracts.

Mengele needled dye into twins’ eyes.
I need to assert that they are of sacred memory, not abstract.

Torturers pray, despots philosophize–all in the work of days.
Beria judged his victims “hardened, uncompromising.”

For years, Mother fed from a stomach tube.
Outside: sea, gases, galaxies, radiation, darkness, interstellar dust.

*

Simpler for X to kill than not?
The pardoner shall not pardon.

Facts almost exceeding reckoning.
Wheel-chaired torso minus legs and arms.

Some immolate themselves and/or others.
Death unmeasured by life.

Mind and form of the beloved.
Though I swear that the atoms do not care.

Sometimes: the rage that could tear steel.
Sometimes: the small deliverance of sweat.

To push up from the floor on knuckles.
Portion of breath, its sustenance.

X = Y; evade the juggernauts?
No reprieve; write: tree, bird, flower, warlord.
– – –
put a meaningful magnet on your car or metal filing cabinet

read Ilona’s important new blog – PTSD Combat

view the pbs newshour silent honor roll (with thanks to jimstaro at booman.)

take a private moment to light one candle among many (with thanks to TXSharon)

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support the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)
support CARE
support the victims of torture
remember the fallen
support Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors – TAPS
support Gold Star Families for Peace
support the fallen
support the troops
support Iraq Veterans Against the War
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support the troops and the Iraqi people
read This is what John Kerry did today, the diary by lawnorder that prompted this series
read Riverbend’s Bagdhad Burning
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