Shouting in my Room for Peace

“Overhead in the deep sky

Of May Day jet bombers cut long

White slashes of smoke. The blackbird

Sings and the baby laughs, midway

In the century of horror.”

–Kenneth Rexroth “The American Century”

**

And so how many more wedding ceremonies and family gatherings will we bomb in Afghanistan? And so who finally counts the number of Iraqi civilian dead after all that “shock and awe”?

And so when the Obama administration talks of a winnable war in Afghanistan who will say enough? Who in this long bloody imperial nightmare calls for peace in Washington? Who will call for peace and finally mean it? Who will have the courage to say that Afghanistan is the hangover of the Cold War and admit that arms will not solve its problems? Who has the conviction for peace? I mean it. Here in a new century of emerging horror I say that in the name of our common humanity, who has the conviction for peace? Let someone step forward in this nation who means it.

I’m so tired of carrying the weight of the innocent dead on my American shoulders.

I’m so tired of Democratic and Republican war mongers. They are the makers of human viscera that hangs from the trees. Joe Lieberman makes me want to throw up.

My nation has killed so many innocent people while performing a political shrug its astonishing that the very bread we eat does not spread wings and flee our tables. Henry Kissinger makes me want to throw up.

My nation has not done enough atoning. The Viet Nam Memorial is just a start. Fox television makes me want to throw up.

Carl Jung once said: “You always become the thing you fight the most.” No wonder we are a nation of torturers and apologists for torture. Glenn Beck makes me want to throw up.

Jung also said: “Man needs difficulties. They are necessary for health.” But health comes with the desire for health. Senator Grassley makes me want to throw up.

My nation is like a neurotic man. Jung again: “The neurotic is ill not because he has lost his old faith but because he has not yet found a new form for his finest aspirations.”

Amen.

S.K.

Author: stevekuusisto

Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University View all posts by stevekuusisto