Swans


 

Nauseous

by Scott Orlovsky

November 3, 2003

 

(panting)

I heard the president read to schoolchildren
over deafening cries of incineration
and witnessed the fundamentalist invocation
of a crusade against an omnipresent demon
that sent all of our defense out of the country
to protect liberated markets

I wrote bills and licked stamps
as patriot acts rescued Congress from a disease
and stuffed Thanksgiving turkeys
with the carcinogenic discourse of fear

fear > anger > hatred > violence
fear > stress > anxiety > poor health
fear > feeling of helplessness > rally around leader to see through crisis
fear > shutdown of critical faculties > ambivalence towards outsiders'
deaths

fear is the mindkiller (1)

I graded exams and taught freshmen about imperialism
as cluster-bombs drizzled indiscriminate disfigurement
and soldiers and citizens swallowed
the green dust-devil of depleted uranium
now shunned and denied the basic human rights
to a healthy, peaceful, and productive life

(deep breath)

The Reichstag burned across the way
from the Polish untermenschen,
democracies all turned away
while Slav POWs ate their fallen

Sneak attacks sparked retribution,
an island hopping quagmire,
acceptable radiation--
ghost towns of shadows and fire

(exhale)

Blue meanies screamed at red scaries,
gutted villages, dug mass graves,
shared the stench of napalm nightmares
in guerilla jungles and caves

(deep breath)

Triangled stars and crescent moons
commit galactic suicide,
humanity lost in desert dunes
of bulldozers and homicide

(exhale)

     (panting)

Please stop a minute so I can catch my breath
as I'm just not strong enough anymore.


 
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Notes

1.  Frank Herbert in his brilliant Dune epic.  (back)

 
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Resources

Poetry on Swans

America the 'beautiful' on Swans

 

Scott Orlovsky is a World History & Cultures, and an American History teacher at Clifton High School in New Jersey. He has a BA in History from the Johns Hopkins University and a MA in History from the University of Colorado.

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Letters to a Young Poet (Letter Seven) - by Rainer Maria Rilke

 


Published November 3, 2003
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