Vultures that Stalk Children
by HEATHCOTE WILLIAMS
In the southern Sudan
Near the village of Ayod,
A tiny, naked
And wizened infant
Crawls across dusty scrubland.
Her face is hidden;
Her despondent head
Has fallen limply forward;
Her parents aren’t here,
They’re hoping for food
From a food drop in the bush.
A couple of yards
Away from the child
A vulture stands, silently
Waiting to benefit
From man’s lack of care.
A photographer, Kevin
Carter, captures them
And those who see the photo
Flood the paper with queries,
‘Where is the child now?’
Editorials
Attack Kevin Carter for
Wasting precious time
In “Finding the right lens
To take just the right frame of
Her suffering”. They say
The photographer,
“Might as well be a predator;
Another vulture.”
These papers, of course,
Had published the photograph
For their own profit
Then it won prizes,
Which Carter couldn’t enjoy,
“I’m really sorry
“I didn’t pick the child up,”
He’d tell all his friends;
Telling anyone
Who’d listen until Kevin
Carter killed himself.
*
Profits from war
Are a greater threat
Than overpopulation.
Most of the bullets
Tearing Africa
To bits add to her entrenched
Inequalities;
All of them are increased
By high-yield arms investments
That cause migration,
And mass disruption,
And unuseable land.
Divisions are worsened
By commodity
Speculators; by
Gamblers on the price of food,
Financing cash crops
That help feed no one.
Gold, diamonds and oil
Are prioritized.
Bling, bling and black gold –
The bullets protect
Such investments:
Investments that grow
While people shrivel;
Bullets that say, ‘we’re not sharing’.
The bullets that protect
The bulging portfolios
Of corporate land-grabbers
Who silently bide their time,
Indulging their economies’
Bestiality,
Whilst in their hunger
For Africa’s resources
They starve the unborn.
In 2006 the U.S.
Spent $4 billion on international aid
And $680 billion on weapons,
War and military research.
Hypocrisy rules.
Those who tacitly support
Warfare States with their taxes
May express disgust
At seeing a lone bird recycle
A corpse their State has made –
Yet man’s nature is
As red in tooth and claw
As any vulture.
Heathcote Williams, a poet, playwright and actor, has made a significant contribution to many fields. He is best known for his extended poems on environmental subjects: Whale Nation, Falling for a Dolphin,Sacred Elephant and Autogeddon. His plays have also won acclaim, notably AC/DC produced at London’s Royal Court, and Hancock’s Last Half Hour. As an actor he has been equally versatile – taking memorable roles in Orlando, Wish You Were Here, and Derek Jarman’s The Tempest, in which he played Prospero.
Geopolitical Cartoons of the Old World
by S.C. HAHN
1. November 1918, somewhere in Berlin
The former Kaiser confessed to spinning a globe three times and landing his little finger on the coast of lowest Batavia. His thumb plunged, meanwhile, into the North Sea and caused a catastrophic tidal wave on the southwestern Jutland coast. Herring fleets were destroyed; famine loomed.
2. The 1930s
Hitler goose-stepped into power after the Party voted to abandon the duck-walk. Blizzards of eiderdown snowed upon the Sudetenland and drifted northeast, to clog up the sewers of Danzig.
3. The Future (or somewhere in The Past, for that matter)
Unrest ceased on Europe’s map after the district of Pyritz in Pomerania was at last shaded in with the correct color, but it had taken over 400 years and several billion liters of pale lime-green paint. Even at that, some remote forest villages are reported to have been left tinted a pastel blue, which gives Foreign Ministry analysts cause for pessimism.
S.C. Hahn lives in Stockholm and can be reached at konkarong85@yahoo.se.
Traveler
by D J MOSER
Traveler—ambling slipshod on the heels of time,
immune to hurry, the mechanized scramble to wait
impatiently to retire from a life spent cutting
cookies, stars sprinkled with glitter, uniform and flat,
small lumps of pastry dough to accrue in the belly
like coins massing in the hollow of a pig—lead on.
Li Po awaits us by the water that caresses the moon
he holds in his drunken gaze, swaying blindly,
unblinking, drinking wine like the dew of moonbeams
spilled by a shooting star. The echo of his chant will
guide us. Come, before the wine is gone. I know no better
remedy for bottled silence than a popping cork.
Mirror of our pooled gazes, old man that I have followed,
old man I would become, spry from restive movement
along a path fresh trodden, resting in the ripples
circling my calves, barefoot, blissful, destitute, alone.
My song has no words, but still I hum my gratitude
to gods who restore to me my image as dawn comes.
D J Moser is a freelance writer who lives in Washington, DC. He can be reached at dajamo@verizon.net.
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