I love long walks in the battle fields of Iraq, the smell of gun powder in the morning, it just turns me on... ohh yeahh!!
I love how some of the Iraqis show their appreciation by throwing rocks, its so touching.
Its funny because in America sppiting at some one is a great offense, in Iraq it means thank you my brother.
Iraq is a country of which all great nations should learn from, shit now I understand why Bush dosent want to leave.
Today the Iraquis were shooting RPG's at us but thats just how they celebrate their independence and all they are trying to do is make us part of their celebration.
They just adore us.
I look forward to seeing them every day too bad I'm only here for one year, Im sure goint to miss those bugers when I leave AWWWW!! Iraq.
Eli came back from iraq
and tattoed a teddy bear onto the inside of his wrist
above the medic with an IV bag
above that an angel
but Eli says the teddy bear won't live
and i know i don't know but i say "i know"
cause Eli's only twenty-four and I've never seen eyes
further away from chidhood than his
eyes old with a wisdom
he know I'd rather not have
Eli's mother traces a teddy bear onto the insode of my arm
and says, "not all casualties come home in body bags"
and i swear
I'd spend the rest of my life writing nothing
but the word light at the end of this tunnel
if I could find the fucking tunnel
I'd write nothing but white flags
somebody pray for the soldiers
somebody pray for what's lost
somebody pray for the mailbox
that holds the official letters
to the mothers.
fathers,
sisters,
and little brothers
of Micheal 19... Steven 21...John 33
how ironic that their deaths sound like bible verses
the hearse is parked in the halls of the high school
recruiting black, brown and poor
while anti-war activists
outside walter reed army hospital scream
100,000 slain...
as an amputee on the third floor
breaths forget-me-nots onto the window pain
but how can we forget what we never knew
our sky is so perfectly blue it's repulsive
somebody tell me where god lives
cause if god is truth god doesn't live here
our lies have seared the sun too hot to live by
there are ghosts of kids who are still alive
touting M16s with trembling hands
while we dream ourselves stars on Survivor
another missle sets fire to the face in the locket
of a mother who's son needed money for college
and she swears she can feel his photograph burn
how many wars will it take us to learn
that only the dead return
the rest remain forever caught between worlds of
shrapnel shatters body of three year old girl
to...
welcome to McDonalds can i take your order?
the mortar of sanity crumbling
stumbling back home to a home that will never be home
again
Eli doesn't know if he can ever write a poem again
one third of the homeless men in this country are veterans
and we have the nerve to Support Our Troops
with pretty yellow ribbons
while giving nothing but dirty looks to their outstretched
hands
tell me what land of the free
sets free its eighteen-year-old kids into greedy war zones
hones them like missles
then returns their bones in the middle of the night
so no one can see
each death swept beneath the carpet and hidden like dirt
each life a promise we never kept
Jeff Lucey came from Iraq
and hung himself in his parents basement with a garden
hose
the night before he died he spent forty-five minutes on his
fathers lap
rocking like a baby
rocking like daddy, save me
and don't think for a minute he too isn't collateral damage
in the mansions of washington they are watching them
burn
and boarding the water
no senator's sons are being sent to slaughter
no president's daughters are licking ashes from their lips
or dreaming up ropes to wrap around their necks
in case they ever make it home alive
our eyes are closed
america
there are souls in
the boots of the soldiers
america
fuck your yellow ribbon
you wanna support our troops
bring them home
and hold them tight when they get here
--"Andrea Gibson"
