Soon
by HARRY NEWMAN
soon the generals
will have their way
and killing will begin
again the modern kind
distant and televised
how strange it is
to think of movies
instead of slaughter
when the images come
the ones we’ve seen
now so many times:
bombs falling missiles
skimming over suburbs
so much like our own
we have grown so fat
with violence we need
our murder super-sized
before we can feel it
when the smaller deaths
the ones on the ground
the cameras won’t see
will never be counted
The Front at Home
by HARRY NEWMAN
I remember that day sitting
on the couch in your apartment
the war was supposed to be over
we’d heard that on tv a few weeks
earlier the president speaking about
toppling a regime the first of many
we’d come to learn but that was later
on this spring day when we had just
started dating war was far away and
it was safe enough to love we thought
the television was on and soon we were
watching a reporter maybe half a mile
from that mountain the last enemy
stronghold a network of tunnels with
hundreds of fighters the reporter said
as the camera zoomed to an entry way
on the mountainside every few seconds
missiles would flash across the screen
then detonate and it was silent enough
to hear stones skittering afterwards
we were silent too watching missile
after missile hit closer to the entrance
murder televised so casually while
the reporter talked about payloads
throw weight guidance systems with
the cool practiced anticipation of
a golf announcer this is the world
we’re making I think we’re part of this
and nowhere felt safe or far enough
not the couch we’re on not the home
we will build not love as a missile
struck and the entrance exploded
(Previously published in Rosebud)
Led (Camp X-Ray, Jan 2002)
by HARRY NEWMAN
green pictures tonight
on the television
green pictures
of men with guns
leading other men
in chains green
fluorescent images
shot from a distance
using infrared
night vision lenses
an effect I’ve only
seen in movies
so it doesn’t
seem real to me
more like pictures
from the moon
or a place more alien
yet there it is green
pictures of men
chained and paraded
for my approval
I know I should
feel protected now
the men with guns
are my men and the men
in chains the enemy
but I feel shackled
instead shackled
with them and led
from a distance
to a place so dark
it will never be seen
not with night vision lenses
not on television never
Harry Newman is a poet, playwright and photographer. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals, most recently, Ecotone, Asheville Poetry Review, Rattle, and The New Guard. His poems have been nominated twice for Pushcart Prizes and longlisted twice for the Bridport Prize in England. His plays and translations have been presented at theaters across the U.S., as well as in The Netherlands and Germany. He can be reached atnewmanov@nyc.rr.com.
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