“[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
image and poem below the fold
A Sunni woman and her child sit in their tent at a newly erected refugee camp in the western Iraqi town of Falluja April 9, 2006. Men and women at the Red Crescent camp said they were fleeing their homes in Baghdad out of fear of being targeted by police or Shi’ite militias in the face of rising sectarian violence.
REUTERS/Mohanned Faisal
A Supermarket in California
by Allen Ginsberg
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked
down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking
at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon
fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at
night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!
–and you, García Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking
among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops?
What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you,
and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy
tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the
cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in a hour.
Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and
feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade
to shade, lights out in the houses, we’ll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automo-
biles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America
did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a
smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of
Lethe?
–Berkeley, 1955
– – –
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)
support Veterans for Peace
support the Iraqi people
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
support Military families Speak Out
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
read Dahr Jamail’s Iraq Dispatches
read Today in Iraq
witness every day
Click on the candle to copy the image into your own comment (you can leave it on my server), and/or rate this one – not for mojo, but to leave a small mark after taking this moment.
” I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”
from Dirge Without Music
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Light A Candle For
Peace, Tolerance, Understanding
and For The Children – Innocence Lost!
Poet Nguyen Duy, veteran of the North Vietnamese signal corps declares, “It is easy to kill. On the front lines, war is not about politics, it is about staying alive. And it is a situation from which there is almost no way out.”
Edward Tick-War and the Soul
~~~~~~~~
Stop the Next War Now
~~~~~~~~
When the survivor cannot leave war’s expectations, values, and losses behind, it becomes the eternal present. This frozen war consciousness is the condition we call post-traumatic stress disorder.
Edward Tick-War and the Soul
~~~~~~~~
Iraq: Pure War, Pure Crime
~~~~~~~~
A diagnosis of anxiety disorder wrongly assumes a pathological distortion that we can treat or medicate back into normalcy. This misunderstanding denies the ultimate nature of the transformation causing survivors and their families to feel frustrated and alienated and demonstrating our culture’s denial of war’s impact. …it is so important to recognize PTSD as an identity disorder.
Edward Tick-War and the Soul
~~~~~~~~
Ann Wright: Iraq War Makes World Less Safe
Ann Wright, former Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Mongolia for the US Foreign Service, feels as long as the US remains in Iraq, the violence there will continue. Wright said the US needs to leave as soon as possible and leave it up to the Iraqi people to decide if they want an international presence and, if so, whom.
~~~~~~~~
Moreover, such an understanding aligns PTSD with the archaic goal of war as a form of initiation. Modern warfare damages and destroys the youth and his character and threatens him with annihilation at the very time rites of passage are suppose to mature him in psychologically nurturing socially useful, and spiritually enlightened ways.
Edward Tick-War and the Soul
~~~~~~~~
Bill Moyers | A Culture of Corruption
Bill Moyers argues that money is choking our democracy to death. Our elections are bought out from under us, and our public officials are doing the bidding of mercenaries.
~~~~~~~~
From Vietnam War air force veteran Jim Helt:
“For me “collateral damage” is one of the most insidious phrases in the English language. At first brush it seems rather innocuous, but it means dead and wounded non-combatant women, children, men, elderly. It sanitizes death…”
~~~~~~~~
Iraq Three Years On: Don’t Look Away
Three years after the toppling of Saddam, Iraq is a bloody mess: yesterday 70 people were killed in an attack on a Baghdad mosque. Patrick Cockburn reports on three years of broken promises in a blighted land.
~~~~~~~~
“General, your tank is a mighty vehicle.
It shatters the forest and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect:
It needs drivers.
General, a man is quite expendable.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think.”
— Bertolt Brecht
~~~~~~~~
“As God walks atop this Wall and weeps,
I hear him say, `These were my sons.’
The sound of his tears fall silenced,
As hands are washed in the Potomac,
And it runs red with waste!
The Pontius Pilates of the new Rome,
Repeat history on full automatic.”
Nicholas James Weber
Vietnam Veteran
~~~~~~~~
“Never again shall one generation of veterans abandon another.”
Reflections on The Wall
They walk along The Wall,
Silent and searching,
Faces reflected in black surface,
Tears forming in eyes.
They walk along The Wall,
Silent and searching,
Intervening years
Have not quieted the pain.
They walk along The Wall,
Silent and searching,
Images of comrades
Invade the mind.
They walk along The Wall,
Silent and searching,
Seeking respite
From memories of anguish.
They walk along The Wall,
Silent and seaching,
Seeking release from
Years of repudiation.
They walk along The Wall,
Silent and searching,
Outcasts of yore
In their time of need.
They walk along The Wall.
Silent and searching,
Spirits of heroes
Home, at last.
Author Not Given
~~~~~~~~
From: Writings On The Wall
Reflections on the Vietnam veterans Memorial
The Booklet
by Jan Scruggs
Peace
and for poetry month:
Thank you for the poetry James.
SS
US report on Iraq offers bleak assessment
Start building your bomb shelter folks. WWIII is coming if we don’t stop the Madmen that occupy the White House.
IMPEACH the BASTARDS!!!
Prof. Juan Cole provides this link to AP story in the Guardian, UK “Senior Iraqi official calls it:
All we have is If, Ifs, IFS!!. Well, if only George had not heard voices, we’d have been spared.
Don’t miss
Another day seeking an Intercession for Peace.
May we find it within and create it without.
The people still living in cars, tents and hotels seven months after Katrina.
IMPEACH the incompetents NOW!