the band plays on

[mnaz]

snippets come pre cut, freeze dried, french fried,
flat screened, lip synched, tel-e-van-gelized,
from boxes of flickering lips and booze,
and snaking stock prices under the eastern front.
remember the eastern front?

and the war drags on,
and ivy halls are built atop the doughboys,
and consumer products flourish like redemption,
and my lust runneth over, o redeemer.
i'll take credit, on credit.

and the band plays on,
and lips move like hummingbird wings,
and history is shrewdly cornered,
and the king declares a party,
profitable and bloodless.

and the war drags on,
and the revolution will not be televised
as win-win contracts and flickering lips,
and war defines the human condition,
as every human has been drilled.

and the band plays on,
as in any particular wasted century,
except this century might settle the issue for good,
all profitable and bloodless,
like hummingbird wings.

[stilltrucking]

and the band played
on
a ship of fools
Captained by a titanic intellect
singing nearer my god to thee



I am happy to see you ended on a note of optimism

except this century might settle it for good,

Yes its about time

I liked your poem a lot
but I don't blame you for my optimism.

[mtmynd]

Good one, mnaz.... as usual. you're poeting intrigues...

[mnaz]

thanks truck and Cec.

Pretty soon we'll see what King George decides to do about his endless war party agin' "The Turr-rists" (and sanity). As if we didn't know. Seems he still has a pretty good hard-on for Iraq.

[Totenkopf]

Ah mad King George; yes, what a tyrant. Now sunni and shiite Imams--there's some hepcats. Maybe some poesia regarding Darfur--or for that matter say Mao's red army, Stalin, pol pots,.


"O Faire 100 million humans Dead,
Marx smiles at your sacrifice dread......"

etc.

[mnaz]

I ain't sayin' he's the worst of the bunch, but...

Yeah, ya gotcher Imams and plethora of assholes and assassins in Iraq fer shere. I ain't here to defend Islamic thugs, or thugs of any stripe. Seems not really the point.

What about Darfur? Yeah. Scribble poesia indeed. Why not? Why couldn't US troops do their "humanitarian" intervention thing there? Oh yeah, that's right. They're tied up fighting for King George's Middle eastern petro-dollar Empire. No. Perhaps this war isn't the worst thing the planet's ever seen-- yet. But it's plenty bad enough. And deserving of my scorn...

Have a nice fucking day.

[Totenkopf]

edited in the name of Poetics!

Anyways you're one of the Greatest PhPbb Bards evah. You were on ye olde LitKitsch too, raht? Cool, and a 99 cent sniffer of Kessler for ya

[mnaz]

I heard it was substantially more than 40,000.

Yeah. I get it. Blanket pacifism bad. Situationism better.

Maybe taking out SH was "justified". Or not. But what's with this endless military occupation? How is that "justified"? King George still wants his prize proxy regime, doesn't he?

Yeah. Give war a chance. Invade countries at will. Let's crank up the ol' World War machine! Heady stuff indeed! Wheeee!

[Totenkopf]

Yep. I modified it tho.' Not much you can do about 10 billion dollar, nuke equipped death boats tho. 'cept maybe write odes about them::: "O Faire Nimitz class boat ....cost 10 bil to make ya float"..but yes situationism preferable to mystical pacifism.........and alas poesia, like Pegasus does not fly so well without Bellerophon

[Doreen Peri]

I understand and enjoyed the poem, mnaz. You are a fine writer and incorporate some very effective images.

Some of the comments that follow make no sense to me, though.

[Doreen Peri]

For instance, who or what the fuck is "Bellerophon"?

What's "Kessler"?

What's "raht" mean?

What are "pol pots"?

What the hell is "LitKitsch?

[Totenkopf]

Ah agree the poem is not so terrible in terms of syntax. But politically, let's put it this way: is war always bad? TK says no. That the allies defeated Hitler and Co was not wrong--and in many ways, Islamic regimes are nearly fascist. SH and the Baathists were certainly fascist. So one could, at least in theory, write poems in favor of a glorious battle against the barbarians. (as many a poet has--the Chanson du Roland, etc.)

BTW Poesia is not documentary or narrative, is it. It's not meant to be easy. Bulfinch might help. Bellerophon is the rider of Pegasus--that's a metaphor. Lit Kitsch? Why that's a famed literary e-saloon.

[mnaz]

Yes. However, fighting King George's long, dragging war of imperial hard-on at some point becomes somewhat less than "glorious", no?

And don't forget our own slide into quasi-fascism here in the Mightee Righteous States....

[mnaz]

Re: my "quasi-fascism" remark:

I was thinking more in terms of the runaway corporatism of Bush, Inc., the strongarm, bullying tactics to silence dissent, the constant assaults on Constitutional civil liberties, a law that allows Bush to lock up anyone declared an "enemy combatant" and throw away the key, the prison camps, the renditions, the torture, the doctoring of military intel and just plain fabrications used to shove illegal preemptive wars of choice down our throats, the stealing of elections, the self-assigned overreaching executive power, the ignoring of Supreme Court decisions, the cronyism, the war profiteering, the corruption, corruption, corruption.... y'know, those sort of fun things. Sure, Bush may have his "glorious war against the barbarians", but who will save us from Bush?

There were no WMD in Iraq. We toppled both S.H. and his damn statue. We've had plenty of time to set up a government (or governments), divide resources as equitably as possible, and get the troops the hell out. Why is our military still in Iraq nearly four years after the invasion? King George wants to eventually control this strategic piece of dirt, by central proxy regime. That's why. Sorry. Gotta calls it likes I sees it.

[Totenkopf]

I don't approve of BushCo across the board, but it might be remembed that many a leading Lib-rawl signed off on the War Effort act as well in 2003. Anyway, can you prove that more good would have resulted had the US/Brit forces stayed out of Iraq? Or that even fewer Iraqis would have died? I think not. And there were some WMD manufacturing plants discovered, along with the mass graves of shiite muslims.

And there are injustices of all sorts across the globe. It's tragedy, 24/7. But like Homie David Hume said eloquently a few centuries ago, there are no rational obligations to be compassionate, or even to feel outrage. Yeah, I do think the deaths of innocents is way f-n wrong, but then Islamic terrorists don't have a problem slaughtering innocents when it advances their power and theocratic agenda...That's Real Politik. We have to sacrifice some of their civilians in hopes of setting up a government that will not kill even a greater number of civilians.