Monday 8 March 2010

In Vietnam, Thinking of Iraq

Is it enough to list specifics and lose ourselves
in the godlike complexity of broken microchips
as we screen our broadcasts walking along nature washing up?
It's one thing to throw up a slogan
and drag a population across a border, an ocean,
it's another to oust the invader—always in bad taste,
the proverbial imperialist oinker.

The details sprayed on the bricks are not sweet recollections
but convictions, a moral economy not bombable,
and to be paid off
or be reborn a fly or damaged squirrel or at best a deer to be hit by a Winnebago.

The functioning of parts is still bound to the beholder
in remote control. The spirits of the dead still fly just as far
and will seek out the controllers of drones and smart bombs.
The chain of command will not sleep well.
If wrong, we are doomed.


(Ho Chi Minh City, February 2010)

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