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The Open Veins Of The People
by John Ross
"And my veins do not end in me" - Roque Dalton
They will bloody the new moon
With their terrible daggers,
Blunt the horns
Of this luminous crescent
And rip open the night
That mothers us all.
The killers will fall upon us
And dreaming will be disallowed
Only the screams
Of the skinned victims
Will be permitted
In this new American nightmare.
We have come here
To this ancient land
To share the evisceration
Of hope with our
Blood sisters and brothers.
We say that we will stand
Between the bombs of Bush
And the cradle of civilisation.
But indeed this is all pantomime
And metaphor.
Now only a god
Who died long ago
Can deconstruct the monsters
Who plan this genocide.
I am an old man
Who has lived
An honourable life
And now seeks
An honourable death.
But I refuse, above all,
To surrender
My beating heart
To these whores of war.
Wherever my souls
Shall fly tomorrow
It will never
Stop cursing
The bastard
Who calls himself Bush.
And I shall survive
In the flowers of the desert
And the open veins
Of the people
Baghdad
March 2, 2003
Thanks to boudicca, who sent this poem to me, along with a note: I thought you may like to use this poem - it came out of iraq at the beginning of the invasion - brought back to england by one of our 'human shields'
one way to support the troops
one way to support the Iraqi people
one way to support victims of torture
one way to witness every day