His Rachel Corrie Moment (In Memory of Asma al-Mughayr)

the cross-hairs fix
across the rooftops

wind from the south-
....five knots

and leading
across the space where birds
have flown

but now
in the cold Ashka-Nazi eye

the young girls form
moves in laughing dance

arms gathering the laundry
she dreams
and surely she must hope
of a world and a life beyond today

as finger tightens
upon trigger...

when it came
the explosion was

of such a force that...

he came too

like Romeo's ghost upon
the imagination's palanquin of night

the bearers of the darkness
they toiled
underneath the thrust

of bullet and finger touching
the silenced heart

and
blood like a fountain
sprayed upon the sheets...

....some secret code
that she read as
she fell dying to the roof

this...

his Rachel Corrie moment come
round at last.

Patrick Willis narrates:

His Rachel Corrie Moment

(In Memory of Asma al-Mughayr)

Should the Japanese Apologize for Pearl Harbor?

[I wrote this a few days after I saw that Congress was trying to pass a resolution on the fiftieth anniversary to request that Japan apologize for Pearl Harbor.]

---

"Should the Japanese Apologize for Pearl Harbor?"

the Japanese were not the first
to bomb Pearl Harbor
we were

so i think the Japanese should apologize for Pearl Harbor

just as soon as we apologize to the Hawaiians
for bringing the mosquito and yellow fever
killing thousands

for bringing venereal disease

for the horror of sugar cane

and purple mountains travesties
above the looted plains

for sabotaging the beaches with kiawe thorn trees
to force the natives to drape their bodies
from the hot gaze

of their twisted
goddamned
christian missionary eyes


i think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as America
apologizes to the Japanese Americans
for interning them in concentration camps

and as soon as Richard Nixon's Quakers apologize
for stealing their properties

(which were left to them in trust to be returned upon their release
which they were not)


I think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as we apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki

(still simulated every year at a Texas airfield)


i will always remember how the blast fused their shadows
into the building walls

THEY DIDN'T GET ANY WARNING EITHER


i think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as we apologize to the Native Americans
for the ruin of their culture

the theft of their lands

the whiskey and infected blankets

the destruction of their hunting grounds

and for stripping them of all humanity and dignity

THEY DIDN'T GET ANY WARNING EITHER


i think the Japanese should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as America apologizes
to the African Americans

for slavery

beatings

emasculations

rapes

hobblings and brandings

pretended emancipations

segregation

lynchings

and

the slandering
imprisonment
and murder of their heroes


i think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as America
apologizes to Cambodia

for 3640 B-52 bombing raids
and 110,000 bombs dropped
during a war that never took place

and for backing Pol Pot
as the legitimate representative of the people

(i remember to this day
the pyramid mountain of skulls outside Pnom Phen)

THEY DIDN'T GET ANY WARNING EITHER


i think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
as soon as Attila apologizes to Rome

Salome apologizes to John the Baptist

on the day that politicians become honest
bankers become generous

no fault applies to love

and the Pope shits in the woods


and should be delivered to the White House

by a woman on ice skates

ten minutes after Hell freezes over



A song:

♫ Frogman ♫

If I were Inside You

I could form a garden from the wind
Make it stay for your enjoyment
Then turn it back again
If I were inside you

If I were inside you
I would not move
It seems so slow
But you would move
I know

Heaven and Earth

You would be the gate
And they would be the same

Flaming letters would write your name
Upon every living thing

If I were inside you

If I were inside you
I would expand
Till you could not contain

Thunder would break the sky
And lightening would flash

There would be rain

If I were inside you

If I were inside you
The door of everything
Would open
And we would rock upon the water
Till the sea gave up the dead

The fire in my heart
Would be the sunlight in my head

If I were inside you

If I were inside you
Every pore upon your skin
Would open into rainbows
That would tremble and dissolve

Over and over again

If I were inside you

If I were inside you
Because you let me in
I would fold my tent forever

Hell would curl up at your feet
And go to sleep

And I would never leave again

If I were inside you

Patrick Willis narrates:

If I Were Inside You