1,981st Dream

__________________

“We all have a chance to murder.”
– Dan Haseltine

Dig graves for your guns.
Make your tanks naked
at the junkyard. The terror
is within, not in sandy desserts
across the oceans that keep
us safe from the bearded radicals.

These men are not crazy. They
say they hear from Allah. At least
their authority comes dressed in
antiquity, comes with unaltered
words from of old, comes on
ancient papyrus pages.

We are the crazy ones, believing
the lies we tell ourselves, dressing
them up with brand new truths
like a fancy whore, saying
God is dead.
We take notes from the corpses we buried
long ago. What good is a dead teacher?

The man on the t.v. screams because
his father is dead. He would rip his
hair out but instead reaches for me.
I point the finger at him:
The war on terror begins with him.

Murder sits within him in a cozy recliner,
feet propped up, comfortably home.

Sitting up in bed, my finger pulses
with heat and tremor, turns to
me with crooked nail, and I repeat
what I had said:
The war on terror begins with him.

Bin Laden and I hold hands, walking
through the battered streets of this crumbled
and crusty earth. I am no better,
I mumble under warm breath.
If I throw the first stone
I cast it from the
electric chair.


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