RubDMC, Author at Progress Pond

Iraq War Grief Daily Witness (photo) Day 507

this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war

we love and support our troops, just as we love and support the Iraqi people – without exception, or precondition, or judgment

we have no sympathy for the devil

we acknowledge the power to act that is in us

cross-posted at MyLeftWing, BooMan Tribune, and my blog.

image and poem below the fold

(left) U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) (2nd L) and armed escorts visit the Shorga marketplace and interact with local merchants while walking the streets of Baghdad April 1, 2007 with General David Petraeus, U.S. Commander in Iraq (not pictured). Photo taken April 1, 2007.
REUTERS/Sergeant Matthew Roe/10th Public Affairs Operations Center/Handout (IRAQ). EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS.

(right) Soldiers salute as an honor guard carries the coffin containing the body of U.S. Army soldier Jason Nunez Fernandez, after his remains were returned to his native Puerto Rico, at Muniz Airbase in Carolina, Monday, April 2, 2007. Fernandez, of the 82nd Airborne Division, was killed last week along with three fellow soldiers in a suicidal bomb attack against his convoy near Baqubah, Iraq.
(AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

from The Ballad of Reading Gaol
by Oscar Wilde

In Reading gaol by Reading town
There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
Eaten by teeth of flame,
In burning winding-sheet he lies,
And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.

And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

– – –

April is National Poetry Month

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Iraq War Grief Daily Witness (photo) Day 506

this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war

we love and support our troops, just as we love and support the Iraqi people – without exception, or precondition, or judgment

we have no sympathy for the devil

we acknowledge the power to act that is in us

cross-posted at MyLeftWing, BooMan Tribune, and my blog.

image and poem below the fold

Bodies of victims of violence are seen on the floor of a hospital morgue in Kirkuk, about 250 km (150 miles) north of Baghdad, April 1, 2007. Violence in Iraq killed 1,861 civilians in March, a 13 percent increase from the previous month and despite a major security crackdown in Baghdad, Iraqi government tallies showed on Sunday.
REUTERS/Slahaldeen Rasheed (IRAQ)

Posthumous Remorse
by Charles Baudelaire
translated by Keith Waldrop

When you go to sleep, my gloomy beauty, below a black marble monument, when from alcove and manor you are reduced to damp vault and hollow grave;

when the stone–pressing on your timorous chest and sides already lulled by a charmed indifference–halts your heart from beating, from willing, your feet from their bold adventuring,

then the tomb, confidant to my infinite dream (since the tomb understands the poet always), through those long nights in which slumber is banished,

will say to you: “What does it profit you, imperfect courtesan, not to have known what the dead weep for?” –And the worm will gnaw at your hide like remorse.

– – –

Iraq War Grief Daily Witness (photo) Day 505

this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war

we love and support our troops, just as we love and support the Iraqi people – without exception, or precondition, or judgment

we have no sympathy for the devil

we acknowledge the power to act that is in us

cross-posted at MyLeftWing, BooMan Tribune, and my blog.

image and poem below the fold

Insurgents lie dead with a live hand grenade besides them in Ramadi during an operation to clear insurgents on Wednesday, March 28, 2007, in Ramadi, Iraq, 115 kilometers (70 miles) west of Baghdad. Iraqi soldiers shot the men, one of them holding a grenade, as the men tried to attack a house. They died during a US-Iraqi house-to-house sweep through what American commanders said was one of this city’s last insurgent strongholds. The operation ended with rooftop gunfights, airstrikes and dead guerrillas on the streets.
(AP Photo/Todd Pitman)

from [American Journal]
by Robert Hayden

here among them the americans this baffling

multi people extremes and variegations their

noise restlessness their almost frightening

energy how best describe these aliens in my

reports to The Counselors

disguise myself in order to study them unobserved

adapting their varied pigmentations white black

red brown yellow the imprecise and strangering

distinctions by which they live by which they

justify their cruelties to one another

charming savages enlightened primitives brash

new comers lately sprung up in our galaxy how

describe them do they indeed know what or who

they are do not seem to yet no other beings

in the universe make more extravagant claims

for their importance and identity

. . .

confess i am curiously drawn unmentionable to

the americans doubt i could exist among them for

long however psychic demands far too severe

much violence much that repels i am attracted

none the less their variousness their ingenuity

their elan vital and that some thing essence

quiddity i cannot penetrate or name

the complete poem

– – –

a personal note: My posting has been sporadic lately, as my wife recovers from her recent surgery. She’s doing well, and I hope to return to this series more regularly very soon.

Iraq War Grief Daily Witness (photo) Day 504

this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war

we love and support our troops, just as we love and support the Iraqi people – without exception, or precondition, or judgment

we have no sympathy for the devil.

we acknowledge the power to act that is in us

cross-posted at MyLeftWing, BooMan Tribune, and my blog.

image, poem, and essay below the fold

Iraqi policemen gather bodies in the back of their pickup truck in the aftermath of a suicide truck bomb that exploded inside their compound in the predominantly Sunni al-Dora neighborhood of southern Baghdad. Suicide attacks waged by a lorry driver posing as a goods merchant and a bomber in a sweet shop killed dozens of Iraqis on Saturday, underscoring the vicious nature of a changing insurgency.
(AFP/David Furst)

Monkeys
by Matthew Rohrer and Joshua Beckman

In another jungle the monkeys fret.

Vibrations are tremendous.

Terror begins.

Mist dissipates.

Monkeys alight in unison

while beneath them nothing sexy happens.

From within one mangrove a monkey flutters helplessly,

another watches.

Noise like refined alabaster drifts across our monkeys.

Human intellect dwarfs only that first tear.

Everything else excels.

Intellect is nothing to savor.

Monkeys know.

Monkeys see.

Monkeys do.

As monkeys follow nauseated foresters

across wet walkways they announce their intentions.

Mankind savors variety.

Monkeys savor mankind.

Poachers came and grabbed the monkeys.

In disturbing circumstances they thrive.

Our satellites saw lilacs.

Nighttime.

No one wanders forever.

– – –

– – –

Iraq War Grief Daily Witness (photo) Day 503

this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war

we love and support our troops, just as we love and support the Iraqi people – without exception, or precondition, or judgment

we have no sympathy for the devil.

we acknowledge the power to act that is in us

cross-posted at MyLeftWing, BooMan Tribune, and my blog.

image and poem below the fold

A woman cries over a blood stain on the ground after her husband and two sons were killed by gunmen in Mahmoudiya, 30km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, March 24, 2007. Gunmen killed three members of a Shi’ite family in Mahmoudiya on Saturday, police said.
REUTERS/Ibrahim Sultan (IRAQ)

Outside
by Michael Ryan

The dead thing mashed into the street
the crows are squabbling over isn’t
her, nor are their raucous squawks
the quiet cawing from her throat
those final hours she couldn’t speak.
But the racket irks him.
It seems a cruel intrusion into grief
so mute it will never be expressed
no matter how loud or long the wailing
he might do. Nor could there be a word
that won’t debase it, no matter
how kind or who it comes from.
She knew how much he loved her.
That must be his consolation
when he must talk to buy necessities.
Every place will be a place without her.
What people will see when they see him
pushing a shopping cart or fetching mail
is just a neatly dressed polite old man.
– – –

Iraq War Grief Daily Witness (photo) Day 502

this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war

we love and support our troops, just as we love and support the Iraqi people – without exception, or precondition, or judgment

we have no sympathy for the devil.

we acknowledge the power to act that is in us

cross-posted at MyLeftWing, BooMan Tribune, and my blog.

image and poem below the fold

At al-Dora : US soldier SSG David Brown from Gator Company 2-12 Infantry Battalion grimaces as medics provide him first aid, after he was shot in the leg by unknown gunmen, while attempting to secure the area around the site of a weapons cache found while on patrol in the predominantly Sunni al-Dora neighborhood of southern Baghdad.
(AFP/David Furst)

Altars of Light
by Pierre Joris

If the light is the soul

then soul is what’s

all around me.

It is you,

it is around you too,

it is you.

The darkness is inside me,

the opaqueness of organs folded

upon organs–

to make light in the house of

the body–

thus to bring the

outside in,

the impossible job.

And the only place to become

the skin

the border, the inbetween, where

dark meets light, where I meets

you.

In the house of world the

many darknesses are surrounded

by light.

To see the one, we need

the other / it cuts both ways

light on light is blind

dark on dark is blind

light through dark is not

dark through light is movement

dark through light becomes,

is becoming,

to move through

light is becoming,

is all

we can know.
– – –

Iraq War Grief Daily Witness (photo) Day 501

this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war

we love and support our troops, just as we love and support the Iraqi people – without exception, or precondition, or judgment

we have no sympathy for the devil.

we acknowledge the power to act that is in us

cross-posted at MyLeftWing, BooMan Tribune, and my blog.

image and poem below the fold

A Muslim Shiite Iraqi pilgrim injured in a car bomb attack in the central town of Hilla on 6 March, rests at Baghdad’s Yarmuk hospital. Shiite pilgrims ran a gauntlet of sectarian attacks as the toll from a previous suicide bombing rose to 117, amid fears that a backlash could undermine the US-led Baghdad security plan.
(AFP/Wisam Sami)

Birds Appearing In A Dream
by Michael Collier

One had feathers like a blood-streaked koi,
another a tail of color-coded wires.
One was a blackbird stretching orchid wings,
another a flicker with a wounded head.

All flew like leaves fluttering to escape,
bright, circulating in burning air,
and all returned when the air cleared.
One was a kingfisher trapped in its bower,

deep in the ground, miles from water.
Everything is real and everything isn’t.
Some had names and some didn’t.
Named and nameless shapes of birds,

at night my hand can touch your feathers
and then I wipe the vernix from your wings,
you who have made bright things from shadows,
you who have crossed the distances to roost in me.

– – –

Iraq War Grief Daily Witness (photo) Day 500

this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war

we love and support our troops, just as we love and support the Iraqi people – without exception, or precondition, or judgment

we have no sympathy for the devil.

we acknowledge the power to act that is in us

cross-posted at MyLeftWing, BooMan Tribune, and my blog.

image and poem below the fold

Residents identify a relative from among the bodies of those who were killed during Tuesday’s bomb attack in Hilla, about 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad, March 7, 2007. Insurgents killed 149 Shi’ite pilgrims heading for the holy Iraqi city of Kerbala on Tuesday, including 115 when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in one of the deadliest attacks of the 4-year-war.
REUTERS/Ali Jasim (IRAQ)

How Can It Be I Am No Longer I
by Lucie Brock-Broido

Winter was the ravaging in the scarified
Ghost garden, a freak of letters crossing down a rare

Path bleak with poplars. Only the yew were a crewel
Of kith at the fieldstone wall, annulled

As a dulcimer cinched in a green velvet sack.
To be damaged is to endanger–taut as the stark

Throats of castrati in their choir, lymphless & fawning
& pale. The miraculous conjoining

Where the beamless air harms our self & lung,
Our three-chambered heart & sternum,

Where two made a monstrous
Braid of other, ravishing.

To damage is an animal hunch
& urge, thou fallen–the marvelous much

Is the piece of Pleidaes the underworld calls
The nightsky from their mud & rime. Perennials

Ghost the ground & underground the coffled
Veins, an aneurism of the ice & spectacle.

I would not speak again. How flinching
The world will seem–in the lynch

Of light as I sail home in a winter steeled
For the deaths of the few loved left living I will

Always love. I was a flint
To bliss & barbarous, a bristling

Of tracks like a starfish carved on his inner arm,
A tindering of tissue, a reliquary, twinned.

A singe of salt-hay shrouds the orchard-skin,
That I would be–lukewarm, mammalian, even then,

In winter when moss sheathes every thing alive
& everything not or once alive.

That I would be–dryadic, gothic, fanatic against
The vanishing; I will not speak to you again.

– – –

Iraq War Grief Daily Witness (photo) Day 499

this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war

we love and support our troops, just as we love and support the Iraqi people – without exception, or precondition, or judgment

we have no sympathy for the devil.

we acknowledge the power to act that is in us

cross-posted at MyLeftWing, BooMan Tribune, and my blog.

image and poem below the fold

A member of a U.S. Marine Honor Guard hands the United States flag to family members and Kortni VanSlyke (3rd L) at burial ceremonies for her husband Marine PFC Bufford Kenny VanSlyke at a cemetery in Bay City, Michigan, March 12, 2007. VanSlyke was killed at a checkpoint in Fallujah, Iraq.
REUTERS/Rebecca Cook (UNITED STATES)

Birds Again
by Jim Harrison

A secret came a week ago though I already
knew it just beyond the bruised lips of consciousness.
The very alive souls of thirty-five hundred dead birds
are harbored in my body. It’s not uncomfortable.
I’m only temporary habitat for these not-quite-
weightless creatures. I offered a wordless invitation
and now they’re roosting within me, recalling
how I had watched them at night
in fall and spring passing across earth moons,
little clouds of black confetti, chattering and singing
on their way north or south. Now in my dreams
I see from the air the rumpled green and beige,
the watery face of earth as if they’re carrying
me rather than me carrying them. Next winter
I’ll release them near the estuary west of Alvarado
and south of Veracruz. I can see them perching
on undiscovered Olmec heads. We’ll say goodbye
and I’ll return my dreams to earth.

– – –

note: I recently used another photo of this family in this diary. Twenty-one is too young an age to be a widow.

– – –

Iraq War Grief Daily Witness (photo) Day 498

this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war

we love and support our troops, just as we love and support the Iraqi people – without exception, or precondition, or judgment

we have no sympathy for the devil.

we acknowledge the power to act that is in us

cross-posted at MyLeftWing, BooMan Tribune, and my blog.

image and poem below the fold

A man covers his head with his bloodstained hands as he grieves outside a hospital morgue while waiting to claim the body of his brother killed in Monday’s mortar attack in Baghdad March 13, 2007. The attack killed two persons and wounded 15 others, police said.
REUTERS/Ali Jasim (IRAQ)

A Hand
by Jane Hirshfield

A hand is not four fingers and a thumb.

Nor is it palm and knuckles,
not ligaments or the fat’s yellow pillow,
not tendons, star of the wristbone, meander of veins.

A hand is not the thick thatch of its lines
with their infinite dramas,
nor what it has written,
not on the page,
not on the ecstatic body.

Nor is the hand its meadows of holding, of shaping–
not sponge of rising yeast-bread,
not rotor pin’s smoothness,
not ink.

The maple’s green hands do not cup
the proliferant rain.
What empties itself falls into the place that is open.

A hand turned upward holds only a single, transparent question.

Unanswerable, humming like bees, it rises, swarms, departs.
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