[GUANTÁNAMO] DOESN'T WORK

by Ron Riekki

“Guantánamo is probably the number one recruitment tool 

that is used by these Jihadist organizations.” 

—former President Barack Obama 

 

“Don’t tell me it doesn’t work. 

Torture works, 

OK, folks?  Torture— 

Half these guys [say]: ‘Torture doesn’t work.’ 

Believe me, it works. Okay?” 

—former President Donald T. 

 

6,000 people work at Guantánamo. 

Close to 6,666 people work at Guantánamo. 

Roughly 6,666 people work at Guantánamo. 

9 people killed at Guantánamo.  Roughly. 

A cardiac arrest at Guantánamo.  Roughly. 

A death by cancer at Guantánamo.  Roughly. 

 

Seven suicides at Guantánamo.  Roughly. 

Rags in the throats of the suicides.  Yes, rags. 

Rags in the throats of the suicides?  Yes, 

rags in the throats of the suicides. And eyes? (See

Rage Against the Machine’s “Vietnow” throat quote:

cages.) Go Geronimo with this Guantánamonow.

 

Called Gitmo, if you twist the language, if you 

distort the language, if you torture the language, 

then it becomes GTMO.  Git, an unpleasant 

or contemptible person.  “That mean ol’ git.” 

Don’t call him that.  What should I call them? 

You will call them ‘detainees;'

 

you will not call them prisoners. 

They will call out for their mothers, call 

out for their grandmothers, call out for their ancestors. 

You will not call them children; 

You will call them ‘juvenile enemy 

combatants.’  They will not be allowed 

 

to call home.  On the outside, it’s supposed 

to say HONOR BOUND, but it looked like 

HORROR BOUND the first time I saw it. 

We spend 5.6 billion dollars on Guantánamo.  

And 5.6 billion less synapses after 

chronic traumatic encephalopathy. 

 

Difficult to count after traumatic brain injury. 

6,000.  666.  9.  3.  1.  0.  0?  Mouthlike, but 

you don’t call out for your mother when you’re dead. 

You don’t call out for your ancestors 

with a rag in your throat.  Rage.  Honor, 

beating, hooding, waterboarding, bound. 

Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (Michigan State University Press).

GOOD-BYE

by Wilda Morris

Eleven Guantánamo inmates are challenging their indefinite detention in the US military camp in Cuba on grounds that Donald Trump’s defiant pledge to keep all remaining detainees permanently locked up is fuelled by hostility towards Muslims. . . . Some of the petitioners in the new filing have themselves been held on the Cuban base almost since the beginning; others have been detained for 10 years. None of them has ever been charged, and all know that unless the courts intervene they could remain in their cells until they die. In a memorable phrase, they say that ‘the aura of forever hangs heavier than ever.’” Pictured: The entrance of the US prison at Guantánamo Bay. Photograph by John Moore/Getty Images —The Guardian, January 11, 2018

           “ . . . And good-bye to you, old Rights-of-Man.”
                  ~ Billy in Billy Budd by Herman Melville


Hello to paying men of questionable truth to bring in suspects.
Hello to assuming men guilty without evidence
Good-bye, old Rights of Man

Hello to ice water baths, sleep deprivation, threat dogs
Hello to solitary confinement and mocking of religion
Good-by, old Geneva Conventions

Hello to hours in stress positions, temperature extremes
Hello to sexual abuse, rectal rehydration, waterboarding
Good-by to you, old Rights of Man

Hello to the US using medieval torture techniques
Hello to the US adapting techniques from the Nazi camps
Good-by, old Geneva conventions

Hello to holding prisoners indefinitely without trial
Hello to holding prisoners decades after deeming them innocent
Good-bye to you, old Rights-of-Man

Wilda Morris is a widely published, award-winning poet. She is a past-president of the Illinois State Poetry Society, Workshop Chairperson of Poets & Patrons of Chicago, and Chair of the Stevens Poetry Manuscript Competition of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. Wilda Morris's Poetry Challenge provides an online contest for other poets each month.