On Afghanistan
May. 23rd, 2003 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaneramosTroubled hemispheres
dark with the steams of war
wild light flashes across night skies
silent lives slowly submerge
in the blind gloom of television cameras.
The first footage of war
was a black screen
teeming with visual static,
a vague headlight crawling through gel.
It looks like a paramecium in a dish,
my friend said.
The details of a land heretofore unknown
now opened to our dazzled scrutiny.
Somewhere under the canopy of blindness,
children died.
As I indicated earlier this week, I have begun writing a book. It is based largely on personal experience, which behooves me to review old handwritten journals.
My notes from the winter of 2001-2002 are a particularly fertile source of creative ideas. While perusing them tonight with a glass of red wine at the e-bar I found many interesting passages.
O usually transcribe poems onto my computer as soon as I write them. But during those months I wrote so much in my journal that I missed some interesting fragments. This is one of the most compelling.
The day the war started in Afghanistan, I had lunch with my two closest and oldest friends in Toronto. I believe it was a Sunday afternoon. We watched the news reports on TV. This poem was written the following Tuesday, February 7, 2002.
Apparently I wrote these words as fast as they flowed from my fountain pen. I haven't changed anything except the verb tenses in lines 3 and 4. I always write quickly, but usually my poems require some revision. This one I do not wish to change.
dark with the steams of war
wild light flashes across night skies
silent lives slowly submerge
in the blind gloom of television cameras.
The first footage of war
was a black screen
teeming with visual static,
a vague headlight crawling through gel.
It looks like a paramecium in a dish,
my friend said.
The details of a land heretofore unknown
now opened to our dazzled scrutiny.
Somewhere under the canopy of blindness,
children died.
As I indicated earlier this week, I have begun writing a book. It is based largely on personal experience, which behooves me to review old handwritten journals.
My notes from the winter of 2001-2002 are a particularly fertile source of creative ideas. While perusing them tonight with a glass of red wine at the e-bar I found many interesting passages.
O usually transcribe poems onto my computer as soon as I write them. But during those months I wrote so much in my journal that I missed some interesting fragments. This is one of the most compelling.
The day the war started in Afghanistan, I had lunch with my two closest and oldest friends in Toronto. I believe it was a Sunday afternoon. We watched the news reports on TV. This poem was written the following Tuesday, February 7, 2002.
Apparently I wrote these words as fast as they flowed from my fountain pen. I haven't changed anything except the verb tenses in lines 3 and 4. I always write quickly, but usually my poems require some revision. This one I do not wish to change.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
silly question...
Date: 2003-05-23 08:16 pm (UTC)The poem reminds me of a favorite Willy Porter song: "skipping rope behind the lines, half a world away, like a dandelion on the minefield."
Re: silly question...
Date: 2003-05-23 08:29 pm (UTC)The e is supposed to be written with a loop like in the @ symbol. For some reason the name made sense when it was an internet cafe. Now the computers are gone, but the name remains.
Porter's lyrics are right on.