[Newspoetry] newspoem 1 january

[William at Spineless Books]

This took me three months to write. I kept a stack of New Years Eve 
papers, trying to come up with something. I don't know how to write a 
newspoem about the execution of Saddam Hussein. It's already such a 
grotesque caricature. What can a poem bring out that isn't already 
obvious? And yet, to use obscure language to obfuscate the facts 
doesn't seem appropriate either, because the event is framed by the 
news as some kind of victorious justice, and any ambiguity in the poem 
might reinforce that frame.

Help?


Newspoem 1 January 2007

The Crime but the Punishment a Violation of International Human Rights 
Law

whenever a dictator anywhere disappears critics
and sends their hatcheted bodies home to their wives
Uncle Sam wants a piece

rifts between headlines
“a ruthless strongman, but (sic)
someone they could do business with”
with solemn earnestness, feigned reluctance
US TV rolls the execution video

he killed 300,000 of his people with our knowledge or weapons
then in our war to liberate his people
we killed 600,000 of them
can we tease even misguided sense out of this?

our neighborhood butcher served his purpose
to shock the world and awe the American taxpayer
in the New Year's Eve Sunday Times
after a dubious, politicized trial
with inexperienced judges
three defense lawyers assassinated
Hussein was hanged on a Sunni religious holiday
for the comparatively small 1988 crime of killing 148 civilians
before the conclusion of the trial for genocide
killing 5000 Kurds with chemical weapons in 1988
a crime that shall now go forever unaccounted for

the European Union advocates an end to the death penalty worldwide
the Vatican called the execution “tragic”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry was stern, critical
India frowned
all that from our allies

“revenge in a vulgar way”
“raw barbarity”
“hasty and premature”
“vindictive”
“Texan law, the rule of the strong, the evil, and unprincipled”

we have brought democracy to Iraq

Wal-Mart says Sales increased in December

William

http://spinelessbooks.com

Spineless Books PO Box 17191 Urbana IL 61803