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CounterPunch
February
8, 2003
Wandering
Aengus Meets the Space Age
By SCOTT HANDLEMAN
I went down to the Super-Shop
To soothe a gnawing need for faces
Strolled on tiles newly-mopped
And gazed at fruits from distant places.
And when the store was
bare and gleaming
(but for a singing man, slurring and spastic)
A clerk took strips of greenish paper,
Wrapped my fruit in crinkly plastic.
I passed through the
transparent door,
Silent with a downward gaze--
When something jingled in a cup,
And someone called me from my daze:
A girl with iridescent
hair,
Metal through a full red lip.
"I come from Mars" she said, and ran,
Tearing fruit-bags from my grip.
Though I go mad from
wandering
Through parking lot and chilly burb
I know I'll see her one more time
Standing on some lonesome curb.
We'll walk in streets
of shattered glass
And talk, til men abolish wars,
Of ocean deeps and dolphin kings,
Of silver space-ships, and of stars.
Scott Handleman is a law student at Berkeley.
He can be reached at: scotthandle@yahoo.com.
The Ballad of S.
Hussein (Revisited)
by SYDNEY BERNARD SMITH
in the dim & distant eighties
well before the last hurrah,
the wicked people of Iran
had ditched their saintly Shah.
with forty million fervent
Shia Muslims on the boil
the West preferred the Sunnis
to be managing the oil.
& Rumsfeld came to Baghdad
in nineteen-eighty-three:
"would you hing of standing up to
Ayatollah Khomeini;
"this letter from our President
tells all there is to say.
Ronnie & the Pentagon
will back you all the way.
"all the arms & money
that you could ever need,
& patriotic principle,
& where that fails, there's greed."
they cosseted, supplied him
they armed him to the teeth,
lauded & hero-worshipped him;
they stoked his self-belief.
the CIA approved him
a golden boy was Saddam;
they gave him a list of lefties
& straightaway he shot'em.
he wanted something nuclear -
"right here! inside the gate?"
(it stayed; UN inspectors found it,
nineteen ninety-eight.)
"we know you don't mean any harm,
- though if perchance you did
be sure we'd come & get you
& screw down your little lid.
"you'd like to use a chemical?
we wouldn't make a fuss -
this gink is fighting on our side
he's just like one of us!
"what's he doing that's out of place?
we'd really like to know -
didn't we use agent orange
not so very long ago?"
they didn't throw their hands up,
they didn't roll their eyes,
they didn't point a finger
at "evil undisguised."
they didn't turn their face away
they never mentioned guilt -
& they didn't just encourage him
they backed him to the hilt.
Sydney Bernard Smith lives in Dundalk, Ireland and
can be reached through his website.
Century Blues
By ADAM ENGEL
electric guitar
fetish of the century
crude talk of the people
jargon, slang
dark origins
blues bayou strum
white rock n' roll
shrill electric amplified
distorted
turned upon itself
louder than airplanes
or opinions
Limeys
Negroes
long-haired freaks
young gods for the young
guitar said, "Fuck you, big man."
guitar said, "Shake for me."
guitar said, "Listen."
guitar said, "Walk away."
guitar said, "Who are you."
guitar said, "Lick me."
guitar said, "Do it."
And whatever it was, they did.
For a while, at least.
When people heard guitar
(ubiquitous: how could they not?)
knew its patois like a second tongue
upon their genitals and in their throats
it was our lyre
Adam Engel
has been listening to Robert Johnson, Leadbelly, Muddy Waters,
Howlin' Wolf, Led Zeppelin and The Who for days and days he's
got the blues asengel@attglobal.net
Today's Features
Linda Heard
Powell
at the UN: Spiel, Stunts and Special Effects
Anthony Gancarski
Peggy
Noonan, Space Case
The Columbia and the Manufacture of Tragedy
Robert Fisk
You Wanted
to Believe Him: Powell Does Beckett
Robert Jensen
Powell
at the UN:
Smoking Guns and Big Guns
William Hughes
Colin
Powell's Big Flop
Ali Abunimah
Dissecting Powell's Speech:
Hearsay and Old Allegations
Phyllis Bennis
Powell vs. Blix
The Case for War Remains Unmade
Rahul Mahajan
Responding
to Colin Powell
Is This All You've Got?
Paul de Rooij
Where Are the Incubators, Gen. Powell?
Website of the Day
Iraq:
the War Game
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