Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE GENERAL'S BRIEFING, by JANE MILLER Poet's Biography First Line: Here is the infant formula plant Last Line: No salt for tears no sea for sewage -- Subject(s): Apathy; Military-industrial Complex; Popular Culture - United States; War; War - Home Front | ||||||||
Here is the infant formula plant missed by a hair's breath next to it here is the biological research facility bombed with advanced machinery of pinpoint accuracy Here are the small women and large babies the medium-sized women with tiny children and the large, the tall women with shrinking babies and here are the former apartments and the former neighborhoods and here is the dirty famous polluted well-known historically besieged important river that ran the commerce, throbbing in the belly of the city Here are the candlesticks of the mosque here are the pre-dawn musicians here is dawn here is the all clear here are the radio waves here are the telecommunication antennae here are the rats here are the fires here is the dysentery here is the one doctor here is the vial of medicine for the population here is the international community to rebuild the city here finally is the city the dry faucet the endless alloy pipe the rose plume over the scarlet plume over the yellow plume over the charcoal over the flames Here is the eyewitness here are his notes his swollen pad here his toothmarked lead pencil his press pass his signature here are the letters of his whole name here are the vowels separating from the rest here the tender "e" the demanding "u" the sorry "o" and the "a" and "i" suddenly very close intimate in fact given the circumstances of no air no water no electricity no society no geography no say no information no here is the audience the couch soiled the telephone wired to the living room the Super Bowl on TV the background of epic winter sky the letters recycled practice jets the speed of sound the traffic Sunday shoppers with their imported and domestic cars tuned to the war the clerk at Circle K tuned to the war the anti-war demonstrators with their headsets tuned to the war the Super Bowl commentators making an exorbitant fee tuned to the war the police guarding the stadium the FBI routing out possible terrorists the boys growing mustaches to be terrorists the terrorist feeling death's high Here is the answer here is the Pope the minister the President the representative of the people here is the student the official here is the quarterback here is the servant here here Monday night -- don't you see us on the shelled road, out of gas, without our masks, money, without our credentials, we sense you, your eye on the high-tech telescope, as one throws back his stringy hair from his forehead, another rubs her throat, waking it -- the only thing missing from your screen, your vision, out of earshot the smell of so-called immortal souls, immortal earth, fruit ripened, ready for market, baths ended abruptly, weeks ago, the last of the drinking water, the only thing missing from your enormous awareness the smell -- as when one meets the great love of his life, the same yellow hair she imagined the very same speech same touch same upturned lips, and cannot -- the smell -- as when one hears her child and cannot -- the smell -- who has slept all night, the sheets cold & wet -- the smell -- silence suddenly, electronic, professional, governmental silence -- the smell -- whitewashed walls on all sides, infinite -- the smell -- desert trenches, a face, a leg -- the smell -- red hills, anxiety, our heads held up on sticks as I speak from a third-floor room the smell throughout the city the country the region carnal diarrhea & vegetal puke & mineral dry heave no salt for tears no sea for sewage -- | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...QUEEN STREET WEST by JOHN FREDERICK NIMS POEM FOR A SOLDIER'S GIRL by JOHN CIARDI EPITAPHS OF THE WAR, 1914-18: A DEAD STATESMAN by RUDYARD KIPLING EPITAPHS OF THE WAR, 1914-18: BATTERIES OUT OF AMMUNITION by RUDYARD KIPLING THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS' by SARA TEASDALE TO THE GIRL WHO HELPED IN THE WAR by JOSEPHINE DODGE DASKAM BACON THE DEBT UNPAYABLE by FRANCIS WILLIAM BOURDILLON TO OUR GIRLS by AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR A WINTER OF LOVE LETTERS AND A MORNING PRAYER: 5 by JANE MILLER A WINTER OF LOVE LETTERS AND A MORNING PRAYER: 7 by JANE MILLER |
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