[Newspoetry] WTC Feelings

[John Wason]

I wrote this almost a month ago.  I should submit it in while it's still
halfway fresh.

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                                WTC Feelings
                                by John Wason


More than 5,000 innocent dead 
at the hands of terrorists, we say.
Six or seven thousand innocent dead
in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, on the airplanes,
just going about their daily business,
America's innocent daily business, 
the only kind of business we do in America.

Should I be feeling
something different from what I'm feeling?

Each MONTH in Iraq, they say, 
five thousand children under age five
die.

It's different there, though, isn't it?
Collateral damage over there.
No, good Lord, not Timothy McVeigh's kind of collateral damage!
The Iraqi kind.
No innocent daily business over there in Iraq, no sir!
Not like here in America.
Oh, some of them try, 
but there's no infrastructure for it any more,
and the bombs keep falling,
and they're not like us anyway,
or they'd have deposed their despotic leader years ago.
Over there "it's worth the price," 
said that God-damned smug privileged white bitch
who knows nothing about paying it.
I won't dignify her with a name.

Should I not be feeling
What I'm feeling?

Bin Laden looks like a nice guy in the video clips,
a gentle soul, 
sort of a Mona Lisa smile,
not a sneer like Dubya's.
They both have children
(boy, I bet bin Laden's children 
BEHAVE when he's around!)
and they believe in God
(or so they both say).

Holy war!  <-------------------->  Holy war!
Mirror images.
Two sides of the same coin.

I won't join either holy war.
There's nothing holy about them.
Love is holy.

I won't say "peace is holy".
Love is the prerequisite
for the only kind of peace
that's worth having.

I will love.

I will try to love
even Oslama Mona Lisa bin Laden
and that God-damned smug privileged white bitch
whom I can't bring myself to dignify with a name
and sneering macho oil-guzzling little Holywood cowboy Dubya.

Nota bene:
I didn't say that I FEEL love.
I said that I WILL it.

Will you
will to 
love too?

Will you?