May 1, 2008

• For Eli

  
  
  
  "For Eli"
  

  
  By Andrea Gibson

  Eli
  came back from Iraq
  
  and tattooed a teddy bear onto the inside of his wrist
  
  above that a 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 childhood than his
  
  eyes old with a wisdom
  
  he knows I'd rather not have
  
  Eli's mother traces a teddy bear onto the inside 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
  
  breathes 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 missile 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 missiles
  
  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 back 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 hoarding the water
  
  no senators' sons are being sent out to slaughter
  
  no presidents' 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

  The poem can be found here:  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19832.htm

  There's also a video clip of Andrea reading her poem, and a link to more of Andrea Gibson's poems which takes you here:  http://www.andreagibson.org/poems/poems.html

  P.S.:  Many thanks to everyone who extended me birthday wishes.  You quite literally made my day.

  • 4:30 am
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