Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE GENERAL'S BRIEFING, by JANE MILLER



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE GENERAL'S BRIEFING, by                     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 --





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