[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).

LIES THAT BIND

by Susan de Sola and Ed Shacklee

"They brought us whole binders full of women."

All lies aside, this tart reminder:
It wasn’t Mitt who built the binder.
Massachusetts women – tired
of being courted, but not hired –

approached both camps. The deal was done
long before Mitt Romney won;
and though the old boys called them girlies,
they had Mitt by the short and curlies.

The governor listened, nodded, flattered,
and gave them posts – but none that mattered:
despite that firm, self-serving pledge,
he side-stepped and began to hedge,

to keep his comfy male preserve
where those who reign pretend to serve,
till gifted women started guessing
that they were only window dressing,

and each year watched their numbers drop.
But hey – perhaps they loved to shop,
gossip, have some babies, nurse –
employment only made things worse;

or so the governor suspected.
Oh, well – by then he'd been elected.
Déjà vu: like them we’re finding
how little Mitt considers binding.

Again he wants the votes he lacks:
again he says he’s got their backs,
laminated, perforated,
reproduced and regulated,

for they’ll be hired when times are flush,
otherwise there is no rush.
He condescendingly reminds them
how their domestic duty binds them.

Moral:

Those fillers and binders are relevant
since Willard's amok on an elephant.
Ironic, isn't it? They found
that Mitt prefers his women bound.


Susan de Sola is an American poet living in the Netherlands. A winner of the David Reid Poetry Translation Prize, she has work published or forthcoming in The Hopkins Review, American Arts Quarterly, Measure, Light, Ambit and River Styx, among other venues.

Ed Shacklee is a public defender who represents young people in the District of Columbia. His poems have appeared in Angle, Contra, The Flea, Light and Lucid Rhythms, among other places.