CLASHES OF CULTURE

by Barbara A. Taylor

"Perspective is a hell of a thing. Perhaps now that we have Iraq under our belt, perhaps now that we have Katrina under our belt, perhaps now that we have had a few unspeakably costly lessons on just how wretched, stupid, useless, blind, willfully ignorant, dangerous, petulant, frightening, narrow-minded, foolish and ultimately deranged this administration is, perhaps now we can look at September 11 for what it really was: just another Bush administration failure that came with another massive body count."

-- William Rivers Pitt, "September 11 Revisited," truthout

Operation Enduring Freedom:
Relentless retaliation for
the crushing fall of Twin Towers.
A violent evil attack on democracy
in a world of cultured casualties.
Those Twin Towers spoke of Power and Greed,
Racism and Sexism. To a pacifist teenager
they were Arrogant. Audacious. Symbolic:
Gross icons to capitalism, all that is wrong
in her enronomic native land. Land of the Free,
where today in southern Midwest USA, white-hooded
malevolent terrorists claim human lives, roam
reckless with guns, can legally be. This country
America has no place for difference.
Like a volcano, rumbling through generations
in hatred and ignorance, cracks in the great
American melting pot now erupt to confront
a new humility, an acceptance
that other people’s worlds
do exist.

But sadly, it’s still the same old bugles, blowing
trumpets of war. Siege mentality. Emotive
bagpipes for death. Drums for marching.
Machine guns of battle drown all rational discussion.
Send in the marines! A call to arms is praised.
Wave the flag! Patriotic jingoism. God is on our side!
Priority: precision weapons, high-tech-unmanned-armored-vehicles,
the very best to wipe the cruel enemy out.
Forget the innocent for they do not count.
Sorrow and more bloodied human faces;
Collateral Damage: families destroyed.
Unending grief for mothers, daughters, sisters.

There’s money in these killing machines.
Empires are built by terrorists. War Barons Rule.
Heroin from pretty poppy flowers’ lethal harvest
will prick pretty young veins of Europe. Opium Wars
rage, make money, as do black spouts of crude.
Oil buys food. Commodities with bargaining powers.
Threats and sanctions. Everything’s for profit.
Everything’s for freedom.

Parents want to feed and educate their children.
People need more than a diet of grass. Women want
to live in safety. They have this human right.
This catastrophic chasm: the gap between
rich and poor is greater than ever.
Around the world it continues to grow.
This is a war on poverty where hopes always
should remain and must be fed to stay alive
with freshness of new starts. Where equality
and tolerance means the same for you and for me.
Fear-free for the teenager of tomorrow
with or without the veil, in the temple or
in the mosque. And you quite rightly ask,
Who is the unseen enemy of the universal soldier?

Just when will the fig tree bloom?


"Each day demands that I write and that my fingers touch and feel the earth." Barbara A. Taylor has published prose and poetry, and is a regular performer at Live Poets Poetry Slam evenings. Nature, politics, peace and women are the main interests and themes. Her poems have been on local, community, national, internet radio, and various ezines around the globe. Barbara writes from the sub-tropical Rainbow Region of New South Wales, Australia where inspiration, peace and freedom to create, comes from the serenity and beauty of this special area. Samples of her diverse poetry with audio can be accessed at Batsword and Triplopia.

NOTES REVISITED FOUR YEARS LATER

by Robert M. Chute


It can’t be just because I was
not there, had not seen those two trade
towers before they fell in flaming
video. It’s not as though I do
not care although it’s true I’d not
visit as large a city willingly.

I still think of people trapped who
jumped, or fell. It wouldn’t matter
where death is. Death’s death anywhere.
Why can’t I concur when you tell
me everything is changed, nothing
will ever be the same again?

Of course for victims, kith, and kin,
the world is raw and new. But has
the whole world suddenly become
wiser and humane? Men still beat
their wives. Men will still be beaten
for what they seem, not what they are.

What’s good is also much the same.
We’ve one more fear, but our lives go
on much as before. What’s new is
where. It was here, not over there.


Born near the Chute River, Naples, Maine in 1926, Robert M. Chute taught and conducted research at Middlebury College, San Fernando State (CA), and Lincoln University (PA) before returning to Maine as Chair of Biology at Bates College. Now Professor Emeritus of Biology, Bates College, Chute has a record of scientific publication in Parasitology, Hibernation Physiology, General Biology, and Environmental Studies. His poetry and collage poems appear in many journals including Ascent, Beloit Poetry Journal, BOMB, The Cape Rock, Cafe Review, The Literary Review, Texas Review. His poetry books include a three language reissue of Thirteen Moons in English, French, and Passamaquoddy (2002), and most recently, a three chapbook boxed set, Bent Offerings, from Sheltering Pines Press (2003). He is currently working on a series of poems based on reading scientific journals such as Nature and Science.

WHEN THE JAZZ AND THE FOOD AND THE MARDI GRAS STOPPED

by Ngoma


there are more ghosts here
than in ole hiroshima
as karma comes
knocking on the door
hand stuck out
for reparations over due
the war profiteers
vote everyone expendable
as spirits choose
to sacrifice it all
in the name of poverty and despair
nature out of balance
constipated w/global warming
til the levee broke
then the shit was on
as the suited ones w/god complexes
control the weather, news and
your imagination
fascism break dancing in the alley
waiting for a chance
upon the stage
jack asses and elephants
stand impotent
too dumb to know
that they are not in charge
the real terrorist play mind control
on presidents in photo ops
who think they talk to jesus
but only pledged to kill
sacrificing souls
that left the planet
to bring attention to the problem
as we look into the mirror
and see unsightly scars
that may no longer be ignored
naked for all the world to see
the emperor has no clothes
as excuses and dead bodies
rise to the top
like feces in broken toilets
the stench contaminates the atmosphere
the village idiot from texas
promises to fix it
sending soldiers programmed
to only shoot to kill
as human kind starves
the repair contract goes to Halliburton
like salt poured in the wounds
of whip lashed slaves
and civilization teeter totters
on the edge of chaos
nostradamus prophecies
come full surface
ass out w/ i told u so's
stamped on its butt cheeks

genocide and ethnic cleansing
drips blood on my psyche
like the days of wounded knee
and the many times before then
in this country of the free
rwanda on my mind
in this time of tragedy
king george is AWOL once more
playing golf on vacation
soldiers obedient to ignorance
turn back boats and trucks
sent to help the victims
and those who looted the world
turn help away
bloated bodies floating
bloated babies starving
bloated egos lying
no pictures of the dead
on the screen
or the newsprint and its pages
but still this crisis rages
as it asks are you listening
reading the handwriting on the wall
that says that we must work together
let's hope it's not too late
to save us all


Ngoma is a performance post, multi-instrumentalist and paradigm shifter based in Harlem, NY, who for over 30 years has used culture as a tool to raise socio-political, and spiritual consciousness. For continued news and updates visit his site Ngomazworld.

WHAT FLOWS

by George Perreault


The movement's always downward
of course, from chickens, slimy, small,
small-minded too in common parlance:
the adherence to minutia, clinging
to the soles of our shoes.

Whereas horseshit's larger, sidestepped and
less processed, just piled up, baled almost,
into the daily work we do: just as bullshit
is the easy lie, the grease on the gears,
and later, tall clumps in the field.

But bushshit, that's a lie which doesn't
even trouble to pretend, it's: here's your
ration, eat it and die: we didn't know levees
would burst, soldiers bleed into the sand,
darkies float out through the oily dark.


George Perreault teaches at the University of Nevada and has published in numerous journals including Northwest Review, Shendandoah, and Journal of American Culture. His third book, All the Verbs for Knowing, is due out soon from Black Rock Press.

OLD TIMES

by Kiki Denis


There was a time that words were heavy like stones and guns
Missiles made of iron hanging off red tongues
Those were the times we were swallowing saliva made out of bullets
And the intensity of our voices was like the bells of war.
There was a time that father and mother worked at the farm
Wearing clothes made of sheets and underpants made of pillowcases.
While we played with the mud and ate only once a day
As tears of joy were dripping off our cheeks when we shared a piece of candy.
There was a time that our nights were illuminated with stars
When mother squeezed next to father and warmed her palms in his
When the purpose of breath was more than breathing the body
When we shared stories in bed and giggled out of desperation.
Those were the times that poverty was our war
Violence was hanging off empty spoons
And bloodsheds filled our stomach
Pushing brutally the walls of our emptiness.
And then one day warm bread was placed on the table
And muddy paths were covered with asphalt.
Food sharing stopped and breathing became shallow
Words were light as feathers and spoons heavy like stones.
And for a second we thought that old times were gone.
But then we look outside our window and saw war laying on the neighbor’s yard
Pushing from outside in.


Kiki Denis was born in Thessaloniki, Greece and came to the United States in 1990 to attend Mount Holyoke College where she completed her Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Philosophy. After graduating from Mount Holyoke she lived in England for a couple of years where she completed her Master’s degree in Psychology at the University of Exeter. For the last five years she have been writing short stories and poetry, and working full time on her novel titled The Last Day of Paradise.

MY COUNTRIES

by Marguerite Bouvard


The headlines want nothing less than total
surrender, to have us raise our hands
above our heads with their pistols
against our backs. If we are afraid,
we’ll stop trusting our eyes,
our steps that carry us through the day’s
rough terrain. Our hands will forget
the kingdom of touch, we’ll rein in
our voices, stop sending thoughts
that would bind us to each other
across oceans, through mountains.
But a moment can redeem us:
a dove piercing the morning air
with its hoo hoo, the crimson throat
of an orange hibiscus opening,
a pair of monarch butterflies
swooping and weaving in tremulous
foreplay, then soaring above the trees
reminding us that we too are citizens
of the sky, the wind, the light.


Marguerite Bouvard is the author of five books and three chapbooks of poetry and several books on human rights and one on grieving. She is a resident Scholar at Brandeis Univeristy's Women's Studies' Research Center.

THE SEA, SEARCHING

by Robert M. Chute


The sea makes no exceptions,
          accepts no excuses.
When it asks in the wind, where
          are my marshes,
where are the dunes which once
          were my pillows,
it does not expect an answer. It
          comes ashore searching.
Those who think to live on the land
          are not ignored,
they are simply irrelevant when
          the sea comes searching.
They call it hurricane and try to
          tame it with a name.


Born near the Chute River, Naples, Maine in 1926, Robert M. Chute taught and conducted research at Middlebury College, San Fernando State (CA), and Lincoln University (PA) before returning to Maine as Chair of Biology at Bates College. Now Professor Emeritus of Biology, Bates College, Chute has a record of scientific publication in Parasitology, Hibernation Physiology, General Biology, and Environmental Studies. His poetry and collage poems appear in many journals including Ascent, Beloit Poetry Journal, BOMB, The Cape Rock, Cafe Review, The Literary Review, Texas Review. His poetry books include a three language reissue of Thirteen Moons in English, French, and Passamaquoddy (2002), and most recently, a three chapbook boxed set, Bent Offerings, from Sheltering Pines Press (2003). He is currently working on a series of poems based on reading scientific journals such as Nature and Science.

BUDDY, CAN YOU SPARE A DIME

CLASSIC VERSE NEWS FROM 1932
by E. Y. Harburg & J. Gorney


They used to tell me I was building a dream
And so I followed the mob.
When there was earth to plow or guns to bear
I was always there -- right on the job.

They used to tell me I was building a dream
With peace and glory ahead.
Why should I be standing in line
Just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, made it run,
Made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad -- now it's done.
Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once I built a tower to the sun,
Brick and rivet and lime.
Once I built a tower -- now it's done.
Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits -- gee, we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee-doodle-dom.
Half a million boots went slogging through hell
And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember? They called me Al,
It was Al all the time.
Say, don't you remember? I'm your pal.
Buddy, can you spare a dime?

You will get to the donation page of the American Red Cross by clicking the following . . .

AUGUST 29, 2005

by Rochelle Ratner


Provo, Utah. God's country. Forget the fact that his
basement's flooded. For the second time in five years he
comes home to find sewer pipes have broken, gushing like a
geyser from bathrooms all along the street, gurgling up
from toilets, even the one in his upstairs bedroom. This
time it was a dead dog someone stuffed down a manhole.
Other times it's been bowling balls and carpet scraps. They
say it hasn't happened to the same house twice. But here's
proof. No matter that the city will sanitize, repair the old
pipes, lay new pipes, he's too old to spend the rest of his life
feeling like the victim of a goddamn hurricane.


Rochelle Ratner's books include two novels: Bobby's Girl (Coffee House Press, 1986) and The Lion's Share (Coffee House Press, 1991) and sixteen poetry books, including House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003) and Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, October 2005). An anthology she edited, Bearing Life: Women's Writings on Childlessness, was published in January 2000 by The Feminist Press. She lives in New York City, where she is Executive Editor of American Book Review and reviews regularly for Library Journal. More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage: www.rochelleratner.com.

N'O'L'NS' DROWNING

by Bill Costley


Breached levee walls

bare the grim truth:

NO safespaces 4

desperate people

dying b4 relief

comes 2late,

thanx2Rove

&Duby@


Bill Costley serves on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco chapter of the National Writers' Union.

PRESIDENT

by Lisa Manzi

“. . after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA [Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project] dropped to a trickle. The [Army] Corps [of Engineers] never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the [New Orleans] Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.”

--Will Bunch, senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News,
in Editor and Publisher, August 30, 2005.

Last year when things were a mess,
you came down and lent a hand.

You stood next to your brother
handing out water and ice

as if you were a normal man.
Now things are even worse.

You survey the scene.
Your plane doesn't touch down.

Yes, eventually, I know,
you'll stand in the wreckage.

Megaphone in hand, lying to us.
I hear you.


Lisa Manzi writes from her home in the Batten Kill Valley of upstate New York. Her writing has been published in The Sun, Salvage Magazine, Other:______, Democratic Underground, Poetry Super Highway, and Strangeroad.com. You can contact her via her web log at www.lisamanzi.com.

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS

by Jen Hinton


It wasn’t the prayers
of today that saved them;
but the thousands of
ancient prayers lifted up
from long-ago slaves
for their freedkin 200
years later; waiting
eight hours in a line
of last resort for a
forty-acres-and-a-mule
shelter cobbled together
with flimsy hope and
slapdash assurances
that it might be able to
withstand the forces
of Cat 5 tribulations.
Always waiting;
always praying;
always impoverished;
always choiceless;
always fucked.
Was it a city manager
who once stated,
“In any catastrophe,
the poor and the brown
are always the first to die?”
From New Orleans to
New Delhi. So,
the first thing
one must always
learn to do is to
wait
and to pray.


Jen Hinton lives in Schaumburg, Illinois. She has been published in several anthologies, including Skin Deep, Prairie Hearts, and Alternatives: Roads Not Taken.

FISHBOWL

A Slam Poem
by Anna Witiuk


They see our hate
Using our love to recreate
A world full of overweight cheapskates

Filling bellies with mutilated manipulates

I cry for my freedom
To let our ideas bloom

Hearts consumed

One nations healthy womb
Aborted
Deported

Reported on less cooperation

Inflation of one dictation's fucked-up proclamation

A man’s impersonation
Of one god's hallucination

Intoxication of interrogations
No realization of violations
To our souls

A hopeless fishbowl control
A burning flagpole
Unjustified death tolls

I climb this endless loophole
Trying to find myself
Trying to kill himself

Holding herself
Tight
Feeling the political bite

Uptight, neo-white, christianite

Sleep too tight
Politics bite


Anna Witiuk is a fifteen-year-old Manhattan high-school student.

SOLDIER'S DAY

by Sean Lause


The crowd cheers as the first line appears.
The summer’s pride, like the sweet, fragile air
lightning leaves in its wake,
their uniforms fresh and crisply white,
their eyes brimmed with visions
of harems whirling in honey sands.
The crowd longs to touch their prophesies,
but their sidewalk lives lack the kindred power.

The crowd sucks its straws in awe
of the men of Fall with wiser eyes
and graver steps
who refuse to be called a “Syndrome.”
Then the third line steps forward
with less assurance, hair tainted silver,
a look of shock almost comical,
that the betrayed often wear.

Then, while the pale watchers almost turn,
a row of invisible men drifts by
forgotten, though some sense a whispered hope,
since invisibility shimmers with pain.
The crowd excites, ecstatic with beer and popsicles,
as the greatest pass by, remembering proud,
in their eyes a still nobility, flags wagging,
guarding with honor the gold so once believed.

A brass band bangs by
to end the parade---
But then come the uninvited,
and the crowd shivers silent
as before them creep the faded green,
faces like closed fists, necks wrinkled dough,
stumping, as they try to gum the words
of a song no one can remember.

And last, driving the coward crowd retreat,
stagger the warriors of the Lost Cause.
The sun bleeds cancer bones. Overhead
hang the spent ghosts of wasted guns
and a star-crossed flag, blown with holes.
Their heads gleam like hysterical doorknobs.
Beast moans in hollow mouths, hands mere spiders,
their grey coats bleeding pride and sand.

And that night in all the town,
not one child dreamed of old renown.


Sean Lause has published criticism in The Winesburg Eagle: The Official Publication of the Sherwood Anderson Society, fiction in The Mid-American Review and Liquid, Ohio, and poetry in Poetry International, The Minnesota Review, Zillah, European Judaism, Arsenic Lobster, The Blue Collar Review, Bathtub Gin, Epicenter, RUAH, Miller’s Pond, Skidrow Penthouse, Paper Wasp and Frog Pond. He teaches English, Speech and a course in the Holocaust at Rhodes State College in Lima, Ohio .