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Adentro / Within Me
Naomi Ayala [bio]
La guerra empieza aqui mismo en mi calle.
Empieza conmigo la guerra.
Veo sus armas en los ojos de un niño
su cara en los ventanales.
Hay veces que quiero la guerra.
Me acuesto con ella.
Le sobo la espalda.
Hay veces que se mete en mi casa
y yo me meto con ella.
La guerra se cuela en mi nombre.
La tengo en mi sangre.
Me endulza el café matutino de los sábados.
La traiciono. Me le escondo. Le huyo
pero ya sabe la dirección de mis sueños la guerra
y quiere robarme los hijos del alma.
La guerra empieza conmigo.
Conmigo misma empieza la guerra
aqui mismo en mi calle
en las pequeñas lluvias de balas
en un zafacón vacío
en lo que digo y no digo
en la enredadera bruja del tedio
en el jabón que uso para bañarme.
La tengo en los dedos
en la sombra de los ojos
en el pelo de mi amante.
Le canto para que me deje
para que se vaya la guerra.
Hoy le canto
y me deja cantar.
War begins right here on my street.
It begins with me.
I see her weapons in the eyes of a child
her face on windowpanes.
There are times I want war.
I lie down with her.
I stroke her back.
There are times she enters my house
and I enter into battle with her.
War slips in, into my name.
I have her in my blood.
She sweetens my morning coffee on Saturdays.
I betray her. I hide from her. I run away
but already war knows the course of my dreams
and wants to steal the children of my soul.
War begins with me.
It is with me that war begins
right here on my street
in the small showers of bullets
in an empty garbage can
in what I say and do not say
in the bewitching ivy of tedium
in the soap I use to bathe.
She is in my fingers
in the shadow of my eyes
in my lover's hair.
I sing to her so that she may leave me
so that war leaves.
Today I sing to her
and she lets me sing.
Greetings from the War
Samuel Miranda [bio]
I will greet you with flowers
no matter how many
bullets you bring.
I will greet you with bullets
because the flowers you greet me with
are from my garden.
I will greet you with song
though you curse me
and raise arms against me.
I will greet you with curses
because the wounded child at your feet
is my only son.
I will greet you with embraces
though the knife you carry
cuts away at my arms.
I will greet you with knives
they are made from the shrapnel
I pulled from my leg.
shok & aw shuk & jive
Michael Willett Newheart [bio]
[clap hans -- sway bak & 4th]
shok & aw
shuk & jive
shok & aw
shuk & jive
[keep it up]
aw shuks
luk @ dat baby bush
shokn & awn us
shukn & jivn us
aw aint he a chip
off d ol blokhed
a chip -- bufalo chip alrite
dere he iz
tokn bout dat
sadam husein -- [who iz sane?]
as d axl grees a evil
man dat bushboy -- dat bush leegr
iz a grees monkey hiself
[refrain]
shok & aw
shuk & jive
shok & aw
shuk & jive
aw shuks
hez so cute
yea rite
freedm -- colateral damag -- beekn a hope 4 d iraqi eeracky peepl
[can u say -- deep doodoo -- yuthfl ndiscreshun -- reed my lips]
destroy bagdad n ordr 2 save it -- kil peepl so dey kin liv
ded ded ded
brainded
THIS JUST IN -- EMPTY WARHEAD FOUND IN WHITE HOUSE -- d big hous
hous party
lets sellabrate
[refrain - r u stil clapn -- grinn 2]
shok & aw
shuk & jive
shok & aw
shuk & jive
sing it agn -- & agn & agn
shok & aw
shuk & jive
shok & aw
shuk & jive
shok
aw
A First Protest
Danny Rose [bio]
Often we have come here for frisbee.
On the greenswards of the Mall
folded sweatshirts marked our base paths,
our ends zones, the goals
between which we dashed.
This has been our privilege -
to run at dusk by the monuments,
the museums: the Capitol itself
made a solemn mile marker
and the pebbles of the Mall
cushioned with a pleasant crunch
the footfalls of our Nikes.
But what is this now?
What has this hill sprouted?
Who are these legions with signs?
Why do we stand where mud is?
Why are so many cheeks and noses
changing to red in the flat cold sun?
We are only one side of the hill.
We have only a partial vantage.
But look, we are vibrant and many.
Parti-colored, multi-hued, motley
slews of folk crowding into the trees
and lining now the willowed banks
of this still pond by Constitution Ave.
No, this is not what was intended.
This is not what meets our tastes.
We were the tenth, silent Brady.
We were ghosts in Beaver's house.
The world was over when we got here.
Yet it was promised us: a virtual world
stimulating, quick, clickable:
we might photoshop a nose ring
on Mona Lisa, or find investors
for our javascript animations.
It was given us: to watch Nickelodeon
to laugh at Scooby Doo
to dive into the mosh pit
to quote the Book of Seinfeld
to quote the Book of Simpson.
Bring it back, bring it back:
the Bronco rolling down the freeway
the shootings at the high school
the famous thong, the famous stain
the shark attacks, the intern in the park:
we will speak to you in focus groups
we will tell you our opinions
and tolerate the contrary view:
but listen to this radical now
from the stage obscured by signs
he says, yadda yadda justice
he says, yadda yadda oil
I want to sit on the flat wet grass.
I want to go on home and watch t.v.
Yet here we are beneath the leaves
on Constitution, shuffling in rows
with strangers, beneath the dopplering
beat and drone of helicopters.
The march turns left into the open,
into the sunlight, into the broad
familiar street that passes the Ellipse,
the Corcoran, the shining dimpled tin
of vendor carts. The column stretches on
beyond our view. And now the chant
begins, a mighty single chant
spreading through the vast column
in throes and fits. This is now
our business, to join the chant
to let it come, like a hiccup
at first, like a retch -
until the mighty vast single mass
voice pours hoarsely from our throats:
for Rather will not tell you
Jennings, Brokaw, Russert, Mathews
will not tell you, nor direct your gaze
to the bulldozers filling in the trenches
the babies without faces
the soldiers without faces
the flesh in the fireball
the slugs ripping through the plaster
the angled limbs of the piled dead.
So it falls on me to tell you:
that one October afternoon
after Wellstone's crash
ten times ten thousand throats
threw syllables slowly
into air:
Peace.
Now.
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