ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As this work is not strained through a white picket fence, I will forbear thanks to
some who, while they deserve thanks, might be displeased to have their names
associated with certain words found herein.

Besides to those unnamed, I am grateful to the following persons for their
encouragement, or help, or both.

Ann Emerson, Denny Alsop, Bruce Weigl, Patsy Riggs, Francie Riggs, Cami
Lien, Nancy Ostrovsky, Carolyn Claire Widerman, Milton A. Widerman, Paul
Widerman, Susan Blog, Thomas C. Ballantyne, Kye Cochran, Betsy Cochran,
Mon Cochran, Will Cochran, o.k. Susan Cochran, David Larkin, Nancy Copley,
Bernard Rubin, Jeff Krouk, Astrid Fitzgerald, Richard Geldard, Priscilla Claflin,
Helen Dicke, Elizabeth Carpenter, Meredith Weaver, Doug Leonard, Erica
Funkhouser, Susan Turner, Joyce Woodman, Maura Kelleher, Julie Korenburg,
Sophia Gabriel, Priscilla Reynolds, Peter Reynolds, Sara Fernandez, Sasha
Puryear (I've got the corner of my eye on you!), Jean Puryear, Martin Puryear,
Lorna, Pia, Miranda, Kim, and Luke Massie, Richard Grossman, Carol Anthony,
Doria Howe, Katie Mayne, Katherine Kalin, Maggie Heinze, Rebecca Kalin,
Nila K. Leigh, Stuart Leigh, Ron Gullickson, Kyoko Yamaguchi, Tatsuo
Yamaguchi, Holly Leon, Lydia Leon, Gonzales Leon, Elizabeth Aprea, Morten
Lund, Meg Lundstrom, Rebecca Mills, Eliza Castanada, Mu Reyes, Russell
Robb, Sidney Werkman, Sidney Wanzer, Evelyn Smith, Jane Upson, Everett
Upson, Thomas Stucklen, Henry Vaillancourt, Anstiss Morrill, Ellen Emerson
Kohler, Lauran Emerson Dundee, Amelia Emerson, Daniel Emerson, Ted
Emerson, Tim Emerson, Aryeh Finklestein, Tom Benedickksen, Dr. Kim, Miggie Symonds,Steven Daniel Riggs, Christine,  Naomi Anderson, Louise Wilson, Bill
Anderson, Gary Brown, Derek Campbell, Stanislav Kolar, Tom Benediktsson, June Beisch, Harald Kiczka, Bay Bancroft, Raym Emerson, and Jen Emerson. Thanks also
to the peripheral support of George Haralabopoulos, at the Rainbow Diner in Kerhonkson. Before easing out for his game of golf, George makes good poached eggs, of a morning.

Double thanks to Cami Lien, who drew the lovely print of the two seagulls.

This book is dedicated to the fond memory, in so many hearts, of Socrates  A.  Lagios
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

CONTENTS

  1    THE  POETRY  GROUP
  2    WOODPILE
  3    THREE-IN-ONE  FROM  WORLD  WAR  TWO
  4    FINAL  VICTORY
  5    NIGHT  WATERING  SPRING  FLOWERS
  6    FLOWER  SONG
  7    RECRUITMENT  SONG
  8    PRESIDENTS
  9    VICE  PRESIDENTS
10    BETTER  AND  BETTER
11    SEXY GIRL
12    FIRECRACKER
13    THREE  LOVES
14    TWO  SEAGULLS
15    PHOEBE
16    FIFTEEN  ACCOMPLISHMENTS  AND  ONE  SURPRISE
17    AMES
18    THANKS
19    TOM
20    IN  BUS  NUMBER  2
21    WORLD  TRADE  CENTER
22    COLD  COMFORT  (ESSAY)
23    MY FELLOW AMERICAN  (LETTER)
 
 

The following two poems, AFTER  FAIR  ELECTIONS and SMART  BOMB, were
 contributed to Poets Against the War with permission to publish unrestricted by the author.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

THE  POETRY  GROUP

 
 
 
 
 
 

Is this the poetry group?
Where poems are slashed like tires
on a sultry ghetto night?
And tea is served,
and sugar cookies!

Yes.  I think I'll have a bite!
I need a little something
to sweeten up my spite.

Now, about my poem.
It is so sensitive,
so deep,
profound,
yet coy,
I think I will not read tonight,
and spare you
a great joy.
 
 

 1

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

WOODPILE

Winter coming.
 

The firewood stacked, somewhat loosely,
like bodies in Vietnam,
the odd limb twisted.
 

The wood, not thoroughly dry,
will burn.
With some attention, the wood
will burn.
 

The question is:
Will I be warm?
 

2

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

THREE-IN-ONE  FROM  WORLD  WAR  TWO

 
 
 
 
 
 

   Three buddies I love,
   yet two unknown,
 
 

                                                              a bomber crash,
                                                              a land mine blown,
 
 

   who give the third
   the strength of three.
   How else to count
   his energy?

   Three buddies I love,
 

                                                               there's Tom,
                                                               and Bill,
 

   and the one I know
   as
   Uncle Will.

 

                                                                                                          3

 
 
 

FINAL  VICTORY

 
 
 
 
 
 

  Knock.     Knock.
 

"Your son is back,
 in his body bag."
 

"Yes.  Put it by the door.
 The Superbowl is on,
 and I want to know the score."

 

 4

 
 
 

NIGHT  WATERING  SPRING  FLOWERS

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

   Like old man
   watering flowers,
   Den Xiaoping directs
   spray of bullets
   on children
   of Tiananmen Square.

   Obedient soldiers,
   obedient row,
   flowers, sisters,
   brothers mow.

   Sick dragons,
   squat tanks churn
   Chinese Take Out
   of mangled bodies,
   twisted bicycles.

   Obedient young soldier,
   imaginary victory
   Chinese night,
   jerks trigger.

   Blind bullets kiss
   young wife breasts.

   Red trickle joins
   yellow trickle
   of old man,
   night watering spring flowers.

 

5

 

FLOWER  SONG

 
I love the air,
the soil,
the rain,
and love to play with them again,
and give them fragrance,
color,
and form,
and so this little world adorn.

I love the spin of earth and sky,
the day,
the night,
and again the dawn,
and know that though
I seem to die,
another flower
will sing
my song.
 
 

6

 
 

RECRUITMENT  SONG

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

        Join!   Join!
        The  CIA!
        Learn!   Learn!
        How to betray.
 
 

7

 

 
 

PRESIDENTS

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

      From Honest Abe,
      to blow job Bill.

      From George to George,
      it's all downhill.
 
 

8

 
 

VICE   PRESIDENTS

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                 YO!
                 Look!
                 It's Tricky Dickie!

                 YO!
                 Look!
                 It's Tricky Dickie!

                 It's deja vu
                 all over again!

                 Deja vu
                 all over again.
 
 

9

 

BETTER  AND  BETTER

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

      Facism goes better with rummy and coke!
 
 

      Facism goes better with rummy and coke.
 
 

10

 
 
 

SEXY GIRL

There's a sexy girl
on the assembly line.
Guns and mines and bombs.
She's quick, precise,
and oh, so nice,
with breasts to give you dreams.
 

Is her country Russia?  The U.S.?
France, China, Isreal?
She is so sweet,
so soft, discreet,
I promised not to tell.
 

Is her planet earth?
Or is she in disguise?
Well,
I only saw her breasts,
and did not see her eyes.
 
 

11

 
 
 
 
 

 

FIRECRACKER

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

She listened, only
with her eyes,

my quiet angel
in disguise.

Then, with her gentle
word, or five,

made me want
to stay

alive.
 
 

12

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

THREE  LOVES

 
 
 
 
 

Your voice is easy on the years,
no matter how
they wander by.

Your eyes make my eyes happy,
even as
they wonder why.

Your touch, exciting,
calms me.
Let there the mystery lie.
 
 

13

 
 
 
 

TWO  SEAGULLS

 
 
 
 
 

Two seagulls call sleepily,
down by the pier.

Though dark, the beginning of dawn
must be near.

The duvet is warm.
I wish you were here
 
 

14

 
 

 
 

PHOEBE

 
 
 
 
 
 

   Sometimes, it's just a mystery,
   how to say you're sorry.

   greatest gift is faith,

   though sometimes it's a mystery
   just how to say I'm sorry.

   The worst is fear,

   Though sometimes it's a mystery
   just how to say

   I'm sorry.
 
 

15

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

FIFTEEN  ACCCOMPLISHMENTS  AND  ONE  SURPRISE

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

     Five gray hairs,
     four barns,
     three houses,
     two inventions,
     one book of poems.
     This doesn't rhyme, of course.

     But, in 1978,
     in Thetford, Vermont,
     I fell in love
     with a horse.
 
 

16

 
 
 

 
 

AMES

   Last week,
   Ames went bankrupt.

   I don't know
   what to do.

   Everything I'm wearing
   came from Ames.
 
 

17

 
 

 
 

THANKS

 

Once I looked in a bathroom mirror,
and saw a stranger,
but it was only me.

Once I looked across a dinner table,
at a lovely stranger,
and saw another lovely stranger,
from another lifetime,
but it was only her.

Once I looked across a sofa
to a friend
who was ill.
Very ill.

I saw a ghost.

But it was only,
Thank God,

a ghost.
 
 

18

TOM

 
 
 
 
 

                      Fact is
                      I'm a little pissed off.

                      If I can get up
                      at 4:15

                      and hammer these words
                      onto this fucking page,

                      then you can
                      open your shutter,

                      let in the light.
 
 

19

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

IN  BUS  NUMBER  2

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

   In bus number 2, the new boy
   doesn't get off at his stop.

   He sits quietly, in the stale
   smell of Mr. Baker's cigars,
   so that he can watch,
   for a few more seconds,
   the back of my sister's head,

   before she quietly gets off
   at October Farm
 
 

20

 
 
 

WORLD  TRADE  CENTER

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

               The ghosts of Wounded Knee
               welcome you.
               They are quiet and gentle.
               No one has young eyes.

               Their clothes are neatly patched,
               their moccasins carefully repaired.
               It happens to be their rotation as guides
               in the museum of atrocity.

               Last week it was Dresden's turn,
               the week before, My Lai.
               The week before, Tiananmen Square,
               the week before, Nagasaki,
               the week before, Guernica.

               Next Tuesday, a small ceremony
              will mark the opening of
               the World Trade Center.

               The ghosts of Wounded Knee
               welcome you.
 
 

21

COLD  COMFORT

         A Harvard party.  1968.  So many smart boys and girls!  Not in Vietnam.  One boy
         chatted with me about summer jobs.  I told him about mine.  Then he told me about
         his.  His dad, an appliance designer at General Electric, got him his job.

         General Electric had a little problem.  A certain new model refrigerator seemed to be
         catching fire and burning down houses.  Lawsuits had begun.  The company
         stonewalled the lawsuits and hired their appliance designer's smart young Harvard son
         to find out what the hell went wrong.  He was given a secret, locked laboratory, full of
         refrigerators.  He hooked them up, turned them on, and ran them hard.  He watched
         them carefully, day after day.

         They purred and purred, week after week, all summer long.

         The last week of a frustrating summer arrived, and he prepared to wrap it up and go
         back to school.  Then a refrigerator caught fire.

         He nailed it!  He watched it happen!  Bingo!  Sweet success!

         He described to me how a wire carrying house current ran through a grommet in the
         baffle in the base of the refrigerator.  How the baffle and the wire vibrated when the
         compressor was running.  How the defective grommet allowed the wire to chafe on
         the hole in the baffle.  How the insulation on the wire wore through and the bare wires
         contacted the baffle.  How the baffle had enough carbon in it to heat up and self ignite
         when it touched the bare wires.  How the purring condenser coil fan whipped the
         smoking baffle into a hot fire.  Bingo!  Sweet success!

         He proudly recounted his recommendations to General Electric.  Besides a rerouting of
         the wire around the baffle, and a change in the baffle material to one which would not
         conduct or burn, he suggested that the plastic in the fan be changed to one with a low
         melting point, so it would melt before fanning a fire.  Bingo!  Sweet success!
 

         A Harvard party.  So many smart boys and girls.  It would have been fall, as we chatted
         about our summer jobs.  But before November, when my brother dazed me by coming
         home in a body bag.   But I remember that conversation, the pleasure of two smart
         boys chatting about technical aspects of their summer jobs.

         The faint, sickening stench of murder didn't wake me until three o'clock in the morning,
         twenty years later.

         How many more houses burned, after the cause was known?  How many more children
         screamed?  At what profit to General Electric?

         The stonewalled lawsuits, the stones solid lies.  The pinstriped prisoners of  a lie calmly
         palming the secret discovery of their smart young Harvard son.

         To those who suffered at such sick profit, I'm sorry.

         Cold comfort.

         A Harvard party.  1968.  So many smart boys and girls.  Not in Vietnam.

                                                                                                                                                              1988
 
 

22
 

My Fellow American

                                                                                        April 10, 2003
Blue Stone Press
Box 149
Stone Ridge,
New York 12484
 

Dear Editor,
 

My fellow American. In a democracy, among adults, every syllable and
evry silence is political. We have just witnessed the crime in broad daylight.
We have the ability to kill anywhere in the livable world, to wage war
with any technique, from controlled slaughter to the vaporization of cities,
with less risk to our population of soldiers than if they were spending
their time driving on our highways. That ability has been directed at Iraq,
with the world as witness.
 

The currency of war is not money. It is truckloads of body parts and mangled
children. Money is a standard of value and medium of exchange. In a
decent society,  it can be a useful tool. But in war, bodies become the money.
Children's bodies, which once were living and had value in Iraq, are being
buried even as the appointed administration of our nation congratulates
itself and prepares for another war.
 

My fellow American, in a democracy, among adults, we can change this.
Or not, as we choose.
 
 

                                                                   Alexander Forbes Emerson

                                                                    Accord
 
 

23
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The following poems respond to a call for poems by Poets Against the War
with permission to publish unrestricted by the author.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

AFTER  FAIR  ELECTIONS

After fair elections

Adolf had his shot
at the evil empire.

What the hell.

After fair elections,
let George have his.
 

                                            1
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

SMART  BOMB

 
 

As the blast wave
rips off your arms and legs,

don' worry.

Your ears are blown.
You won't be able to hear

your screams.
 
 

                                                2
 
 
 
 
 

ANOTHER VICTORY

Hey, we took out thirty thousand
men, women, and children,
as if it were a video game.
Ain't we great.
Thank God they didn't have families.

Now the rest of them can learn
about Happy Meals, that Things
Go better with Coke,
the plight of the Red Sox.

A lot of them, especially the ones
with red sox and no feet,
are sure to vote for the Red Sox,
now that they respect
democracy.
 
 

3

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 HEADS UP

Proudly declaring the marriage
of the corporation
and the state,

before being strung up
with piano wire
from a lamp post,

Benito Mussolini
made music,
shed light.
 
 

4

 
 
 
 
 

BLOOD KIN

 

Spirit sick rich kids
buy pretty white houses,
whine about evil, work like devils
with axes.

As liberals whine,
over white cheese, and white wine,
smart bombs distribute
their taxes.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

5
 

 SAD LIMERICK

 

From America there was a nice boy,
who played his F-16 like his toy.
He took out Iraq,
and when he came back,
his nice mom greeted him with nice joy.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

6