Monday, July 23, 2007

"Homeland Security" by Halvard Johnson

I love how this poem uses the language in which we talk about the Iraqi government to our own.

"Homeland Security" by Halvard Johnson

Large tanks marked PROPANE, lying in rows in the sun.
You’ve watched the scene in commercial satellite photos
with an aim of splitting the opposition, doing the dirty work

that needs to be done. A near-earth fly-by deflected
suspicion onto certain of our neighbors whose names you may
know or may not, refusing to believe that any court

could be objective in this matter—our zero percent market share in
gasoline pumps. The government/industry test execution team
says our new government should be a federal democracy, and money

should remain the state religion. Does that sound familiar?
Most of the delegates have been in exile for decades,
their heinous crimes against humanity almost totally forgotten.

To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile petrochemical
corporations to their coming decline—those are our aims.
Sites near the town of Jumpstart, Nevada, were of a type that could

be used for making nuclear weapons, links to your future, and ours.
Visits there never complete without souvenirs from the gift shop—
you know, something for the wife and kids.

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