[Newspoetry] Promises, Promises...

[Donald L Emerick]

Promises, promises...

Law School teaches you how to swear:
what would be good and bad swearing
and what ills fall on those who swear
untruly, giving words away,
which never belonged to them,
never were in their hearts and minds,
a falseness that echoes its name.

Bush accuses Iraq's Hussein
of illicit promise breaking
and then threatens to break Iraq
for breaking its own promises.

Now, law taught me that promises,
when broken, may be enforced
only by the state in the name
of parties given the promise
as that upon which they could count.

Bush's US, it follows, has no right
to enforce promises given
to the UN, the world at large,
by Iraq, even when it breaks
all promises as to their words.

In the eyes of the world at large,
from global points of world-wide view,
unilateral decisions
of Us to enforce promises
would itself stretch and break the law.

Law also taught me another thing:
coerced promises are nothing.
Your gun, when pointed at my head,
deprives me and my words of truth,
for no mind thinks when death impends,
so swiftly does threat erase hope
or trust, veneers of animals,
that are the vital part of truth,
and its tellings in promises.

By such second promising thoughts,
Iraq might rightly say its words
in those alleged promises
were not freely given consent,
the giving of some this for that,
where rough equality does rule.
Iraq may have broken no word
and certainly no promise,
made to US, whose name Bush takes
in vain when he says otherwise.

Bush and his band of poor traitors
portray those leaders as gone mad
with great power, who would wage war
on innocent people for sport
or for gaining private profits.

These are only self portrayals,
projections of all psychopaths,
when paranoia knows no truth,
and cares less than nothing for it,
as subtle wor(l)ds of promise.

Thanks for listening
Donald L Emerick
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/newspoetry/attachments/20020915/49cf8544/attachment.htm