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
image and poem below the fold
US Army soldier Luis Puertes, a double amputee of the 4th Infintry Division who was injuried in Baghdad, Iraq, tries out his prosthetic limbs after having them adjusted at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, 21 December 2006. Since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003, Walter Reed has treated 5,437 soldiers from "Operation Iraqi Freedom."
(AFP/File/Jim Watson)
Unbehold
by Bruce Beasley
Lord Nelson's hand, blasted
off by musket-fire at Tenerife,
stayed clutched into a fist
in the gap below his stump,
the unbeholdable
fingers stabbing
their ever-longer nails
into his palm. Daily
in the amputated place
the gone
fingers cut deeper
into the gone & welted
skin. If a hand
can outlast
its shearing-off & still
inflict its scratch & cramp,
he thought, how much
more must the soul
go on when the whole
body's a phantom
body, rid
of all but
its spirit's
fist-kinks & stabs?