Kirkuk

 

 

            Two fingers pinch the bridge nose

            With an affectation bordering on lament

            And the screen flickers, such horror

            These people with bombs on avenues

            And shallow opinions about

            Magnets on vehicles

            Flags and fuckers and fuck you, Jesus

            Does it ever end?

 

            It’s a cold air out this window perhaps

            But this pot simmers

            You get a bunch of crazy people

            Out the window to the world

            All jumping and insane, manic and lost

            Where the fuck, an army, a democracy,

            With an older woman saying

            I think we should give up some freedoms

            To be safe, don’t you… ?

            (and not a cartoon or a stereotype)

 

            Cocked head sideways regards the words on the page

            Oblong and dizzy, because one can’t afford health care

            Men five years my junior dying in giant metal vehicles

            At religious whim of peril

            With an improvised explosive device with

            Powder bordering on cement

            Knocking perspective and wheels eschew

            Throwing us all from the truck

            Down the avenue beyond the women and children

            Who watch, gleefully, raising their hands as they’re blown to bits,

            Singing in perfect harmony:

            Freedom is on the march!