THE HAUNTING
The banshees and banishees are
still flying around in my head
Even though the banishers
are elsewhere or dead
and can’t send me without supper
cold and lonely to my bed
Hunger was always lonely
and lonely hungry behind that door
it’s easy to get things mixed up
when you’re four
But I’m still
eating today when you send me away
and probably will until
I pluck the i from the banishee
WHAT WE OWE
For all those who harmed
my father and my father’s father
For all those my father
and my father’s father brought to harm
How do we now walk arm in arm
Shall we start by tallying
what we owe and where the payment ends
An apology for sure
A compensation maybe
Never a revenge
CHECKPOINT
The Marine Sergeant said
We put up our hands for them to stop
If they kept going we just lit them up
Our patrol killed thirty or forty civilians
in one forty eight hour period
Later I learned that a hand in the air like that
is just a sign for hello in Iraq
I never want to go back
BODY COUNT
The trouble is
you can only count the bodies that count
Afghani and Iraqi soldiers and citizens
have already paid ten times 911
but it doesn’t seem to help
If it’s only American lives that count
then it’s only American deaths that count
So if one dead hero cancels one dead victim
let’s give some thanks this Thanksgiving
we’re more than half way there
NOVEMBER 11, 2004
It is Remembrance Day in Canada
Veterans Day in the good old USA
I am working from the house
faxes come in and faxes go out
People write me nice letters and send
beautiful pictures through the computer
I say “I love technology”
And then I remember
In Fallujah today
people in tanks as big as trains
are pushing pretty red buttons
and blowing out real people’s brains
BUSH CONTROL
Here’s one for your southern values y’all
if you can’t manage to abstain
try early withdrawal
IRAQ AND BACK
Your innocent children they took away
returning now as corpses or as killers
and you now learning how little
the difference between the two
ELECTION 2004
Politics of fear working like a dream
keeps America from changing horses
in the middle of a scream
ELEVATORS
Remembering
all those seed filled erections
in every town on the prairie
back when the west was young
IT’S A DATE
Sometimes my ever loving mate
gets a little cranky when it gets late
It seems her “best before” date
is about a quarter past eight