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WHO RULES: THE ISRAEL LOBBY OR UNCLE SAM?

The answer at last! Uri Avnery, former Knesset member, assesses the Lobby's power. "If the Israeli government wanted a law tomorrow annulling the 10 Commandments, 95 U.S. Senators (at least) would sign the bill forthwith." But, yes, in the end the dog wags the tail. Fifty years ago Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" blew the cobwebs out of millions of young minds and drove a stake through the heart of Eisenhower's America. Lenni Brenner remembers Ginsberg in the East Village. Dr Mengele died in exile, in disguise. Dr Ishii died rich and recognized, in his own Tokyo home. Christopher Reed on Japanese WW2 medical tortures and how the U.S. covered them up. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now!

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Today's Stories

May 6 / 7, 2006

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Rise and Possible Fall of Richard Pombo

May 5, 2006

Vijay Prashad
The Charmless Inconveniences of the Bourgeoisie

Robert Fisk
Sy Hersh versus the Bush Administration (and the DC Press Corps)

David Swanson
Washington Post Writer Rushes to Rummy's Defense Against Ray McGovern

Mearsheimer / Walt
The Storm Over "the Israel Lobby"

Dave Lindorff
They're Back!: The Looters of Social Security

Sarah Ferguson
A Day Without Gringos: Immigrants Flooded the Streets of NYC on May, But Where Were the White Peaceniks?

CounterPunch News Service
Costs of US Wars: Bush's GWOT Now Fifth Most Expensive in US History

Corporate Crime Reporter
David Sirota: Still Shackled to the Democrats

Website of the Day
Watch Ray KO Rummy

 

May 4, 2006

John F. Sugg
Sami al-Arian's Final Persecution

Will Potter
Green is the New Red: How the Bush Administration is Using Terror Laws to Prosecute Nonviolent Environmental Activists

Jonathan Cook
The Long Path Back to Umm al-Zinat

Roger Burbach
Bolivia's Radical Realignment

Chris Dols
Colbert's Moment (And Why the Beltway Gang Didn't Get It)

Christopher Brauchli
Sen. Frist Without Clothes

Tony Swindell
"Our Descent into Hell has Begun"

Website of the Day
The Two Lobbies

 

May 3, 2006

Robert Bryce
The Self-Locking F-22

Paul Craig Roberts
John Kenneth Galbraith, a Great American

James Petras
The Rise of the Migrant Workers' Movement

Lee Sustar
Democrats and Immigrants: the Grand Evasion

David Bolton
The War on Drugs is a War on Ourselves

Joshua Frank
Challenging Hillary

Jeffery R. Webber
Evo Morales' Historic May Day: Bolivia Nationalizes Gas!

Website of the Day
Happy Birthday, Pete Seeger!

 

May 2, 2006

Evelyn Pringle
Gouge and Profit: Will Big Oil Destroy

Tariq Ali
On the Death of Pramoedya Ananta Toer: Indonesia's Greatest Writer
the US Economy?

Saul Landau
Life in the Mekong Delta

Paul Craig Roberts
Endgame for the Constitution

Gary Leupp
"Out of Iraq, Into Darfur?"

Ron Jacobs
May Day in Asheville

Sen. Russell Feingold
Our Presence is Destabilizing Iraq

Anthony Papa
Rush Limbaugh and the Politics of Drug Addiction

Website of the Day
Rainbow Books

 

 

May Day, 2006

Norman Finkelstein
The Israel Lobby: It's Not Either / Or

Christopher Reed
Mercury's Message, 50 Years On

Michael Donnelly
Rummy's Not the Only One Who Should Go: What About the War's Liberal Enablers?

Dave Zirin
A Day Without Pujols

Mike Whitney
The "N' Word: Take Back the Oil Companies!

Gilad Atzmon
Self-Haters Unite!

Missy Comley Beattie
Marching for Peace

Alexander Cockburn
The War on Terror on the Lodi Front

Website of the Day
In Your Face, Mr President

 

April 29 / 30, 2006

Peter Linebaugh
May Day with Heart

Ralph Nader
Break Up the Big Oil Cartel

Robert Bryce
The Scandal of the V-22: It Kills, It Crashes, But It Won't Die

Rev. William Alberts
Praying for Peace or Preying on Peace? Time for People of Faith to Censure Bush

Lee Sustar
Opening a New Movement

John Chuckman
Xenophobia in a Land of Immigrants

Eric Ruder
An Interview with Camilo Meija on the War and Immigrants

Seth Sandronsky
Securing the Homeland for Whom

Ron Jacobs
Neil Young's Call to Arms

Ben Tripp
A Fork in the American Road

Fred Gardner
Forgotten Memories: Personal and Political

Don Monkerud
Corruption Reform in the Age of Abramoff: Not a Roar, But a Whimper

Tommy Stevenson
JazzFest, Tears and the Renewal of New Orleans

Lettrist International
Proposals for Rationally Improving the City of Paris

Contratiempo
Back to the Back of the Yards: the Jungle, 100 Years Later

St. Clair, Vest and D'Antoni
CounterPunch Playlist: What We're LIstening to This Week

Poets' Basement
Engel, Orloski and Guthrie

Website of the Weekend
Survival of the Fattest

 

April 28, 2006

James Ridgeway
What You Won't See in Flight 93, the Film

Ramzy Baroud
Hamas' Impossible Mission

Sarah Knopp
An Interview with Nativo Lopez on the May Day Protests

William S. Lind
Off With His Head!: But Rumsfeld's Should Not be the Only One That Rolls

Werther
Operation Canned Meat and Its Derivatives

April 27, 2006

Winslow T. Wheeler
How Much is the War Costing? How Many US Troops are Really in Iraq?

Robert Fisk
The United States of Israel?

Juan Santos
Immigration Endgame

Robert Jensen
Why Leftists Distrust Liberals

Dave Lindorff
Making America Safer: One Released War Crime Victim at a Time

Jose Pertierra
Honor and Injustice:the Case of the Cuban Five

 

April 26,2006

Robin Philpot
The Rich Life of Jane Jacobs

Sherry Wolf
Democrats, Their Apologists and Abortion: the Jig is Up

Pratyush Chandra
Nepal: a Saga of Compromise and Struggle

Joshua Frank
Zig-Zagging Through the War With John Kerry

Gary Leupp
The Neo-Cons and Iran: No Negotiations

Bill Quigley
Katrina: Eight Months Later

 

 

April 25, 2006

Gary Leupp
Wilkinson Speaks Out About the Coming War on Iran

Paul Craig Roberts
The World is Uniting Against the Bush Imperium

Linda S. Heard
Is the US Waging Israel's Wars?: the Prophecy of Oded Yinon

Ralph Nader
Political Science: Gingrich, "Futurism" and the Abolition of the OTA

Mike Whitney
Preparing for the Economic Typhoon

Michael Donnelly
Lutherans Betray Michigan's Loon Lake Wetlands for Pieces of Silver

Sharon Smith
Breathing New Life Into May Day

Website of the Day
SDS Ver. 2

 

April 24, 2006

Tim Wise
What Kind of Card is Race?

John Stanton
Strike Iran, Watch Pakistan and Turkey Fall

Dave Lindorff
Dangerous Times Ahead

Steve Shore
Berlusconi Defeated: The Long Wait is Over ... Or Is It?

Amadou Deme
Hotel Rwanda: Setting the Record Straight

Mickey Z.
15 Minutes of Radical Fame: America Meets Bill Blum and Ward Churchill

Ralph Nader
Lee Raymond's Unconscionable Platinum Parachute

Alexander Cockburn
Obama's Game

Website of the Day
Too Stupid to Be President?

 

April 22/23, 2006

Jeffrey St. Clair
The General, GM and the Stryker

Jeff Halper
SUMUD vs. Apartheid: the Elections in Palestine and Israel

Jeff Klein
How to Manufacture a War Criminal: Saddam and Me, a True Story

Thomas P. Healy
Out Now: an Interview with Anthony Arnove

David Underhill
Stuck in Mobile with the Rev. Graham Blues Again

Lee Sustar
"We are Going to Keep Marching": an Interview with Immigrant Rights Organizer Martín Unzueta

Deb Reich
The Little Mermaid on Highway Six: Rooting for Ordinary Israelis to Wake Up

John Chuckman
America's Gulag: Purge at the CIA

Fred Gardner
More Suppression of Marijuana Research

Julian Edney
Can Our Economy Run Without Fear?

Seth Sandronsky
The GOP and California's Levees

Brynne Keith-Jennings
The Meddlesome Ambassador Trivelli: Undermining Democracy in Nicaragua

Dave Lindorff
Where are the Frogs?

Catherine Ann Cullen and Harry Browne
Springsteen Polishes His Roots: First Impressions of "We Shall Overcome"

Bill Pahnelas
Bush Passes the Buck on Soaring Gas Prices

Jim French
Time to Overhaul US Farm Policy

Ron Jacobs
"I Know I'm Not Dreaming, Because I Can't Sleep Any More"

David Krieger
The Courage of Sophie Scholl: Resisting Hitler

Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week

Poets' Basement
Buknatski, Engel and Ford

Website of the Weekend
Eye of the Storm

 

April 21, 2006

Jonathan Cook
The Sinister Meaning of Olmert's "Hitkansut": Deporting Hamas MPs

Lawrence R. Velvel
Physical Courage, Moral Courage and American Generals

Evelyn Pringle
How to Out a CIA Agent

Christopher Brauchli
The Rich are Different

Pratyush Chandra
Pure-and-Simple Revolutions in Nepal and Venezuela

Michael George Smith
This is What a Movement Looks Like

Missy Comley Beattie
Serving at the Decider's Pleasure

Sarah Hines
The Bracero Program: 1942-1964

Website of the Day
Hunger Strike at U. of Miami

 

April 20, 2006

Chris Kutalik
As Crisis Deepens, Is Labor Finally Showing Signs of a Comeback?

Gary Leupp
Cheney, the Neocons and China

Joshua Frank
Stop the War! Dump the Democrats!

Diane Christian
The Authority to Kill

William S. Lind
Sweeping Up: the Real Problem Wasn't the Execution of the War, But the Enterprise Itself

Ramzy Baroud
A Case for the Palestinan Government

Justin E.H. Smith
Doctors and Lethal Injection

 

April 19, 2006

P. Sainath
More Kids? Pay More for Your Water

Norman Solomon
When Diplomacy Means War: Bait-and-Switch on Iran

Anthony Papa
When Justice Isn't Blind: Double Standards for the Rich and Poor in New York

Mike Ferner
Movement Blues

Stanley Heller
The Massacre at Qana, 10 Years Later: Still No Justice

Rifundazione
"We Defeated Berlusconi"

Christopher Reed
Secrets of the Garden of Bliss

Alexander Cockburn
The Pulitzer Farce

Website of the Day
Bunker Busters: the Movie

April 18, 2006

Paul Craig Roberts
How Safe is Your Job?

Eric Wingerter
Washington Post vs. Venezuela

Juan Santos
What Immigrants Need to Learn from the Black Civil Rights Movement

Greg Weiher
The Zarqawi Gambit Revisited

Sam Bahour
Is Hamas Being Forced to Collapse?

Behzad Yaghmaian
In the Gaze of New Orleans

Website of the Day
The FBI and the Jack Anderson Files

 

April 17, 2006

Kevin Zeese
An Interview with the First Arab-American Senator: Jim Abourezk on Bush's Lies and the Dems' Complicity

Uri Avnery
Olmert the Fox

Norman Solomon
Why Won't Moveon.Org Oppose the Bombing of Iran?

John Ross
A Real Day Without Mexicans?

Laila al-Haddad
The Earth is Closing in on Us: Dispatch from Gaza

Jeffrey Blankfort
A Tale of Two Members of Congress and the Capitol Hill Police

Website of the Day
Dixie Chicks: Not Ready to Back Down

 

April 15 / 16, 2006

Jeffrey St. Clair
How Star Wars Came to the Arctic

Ralph Nader
Remembering Rev. William Sloan Coffin

Thaddeus Hoffmeister
The Ghost of Shinseki: the General Who Was Sent Out to Pasture for Being Right

Kevin Prosen / Dave Zirin
Privilege Meets Protest at Duke

Thomas P. Healy
Taking Care of What We've Been Given: a Conversation with Wendell Berry

Kristoffer Larsson
Are 40 Percent of All Swedes Anti-Semitic?: Anatomy of a Statistical Flim-Flam

Fred Gardner
Continuing Medical (Marijuana) Education

Edwin Krales
New York's Katrina: the Hidden Toll of AIDS Among Blacks and the Poor

Brian Cloughley
Don't Blitz Iran: Risking the Ultimate Blowback

John Holt
Walking Off Vietnam with Edward Abbey's Surrogate Son

Seth Sandronsky
What Billionaires Mean By Education Reform: Oprah, Bill Gates and the Privatization of Public Schools

Rafael Renteria
Making It Plain About New Orleans

Michael Ortiz Hill
In the Ashes of Lament: an Easter Meditation

William A. Cook
An Israel Accountability Act

Gideon Levy
Shooting Nasarin: a Story About a Little Girl

Andrew Wimmer
Stopping the Bush Juggernaut: a New Citizens Campaign

Madis Senner
Talking Points for Easter Weekend: Jesus Didn't Lie, Mr. Bush

Michael Kuehl
The Sex Police State: Women as "Rapists" and "Pedophiles"?

Mark Scaramella
When Even God Can't Follow His Own Commandments: the Timeless Scarcasm of Mark Twain

Nate Mezmer
187 Proof: Living and Dying Hip-Hop

Jesse Walker
Playlist

Poets' Basement
Engel, Laymon and Subiet

Website of the Weekend
Pink Serenades Bush

 

April 14, 2006

Col. Dan Smith
Candor or Career?: Why Few Top Military Officials Resign on Principle

Saul Landau
Ho Chi Minh City Moves On Without Regrets

Stan Cox
The Real Death Tax

Kevin Zeese
Hersh vs. Bush on Iran: Who Would You Believe?

Brian McKinlay
Bad Times for Bush's Buddies

Howard Meyers
Dwarves, Knives and Freedom: Bush, Jr. is No LBJ

Ishmael Reed
The Colored Mind Doubles: How the Media Uses Blacks to Chastize Blacks

Website of the Day
Asshole: a Film Strip

 

April 13, 2006

CounterPunch News Service
Powell's "Bitch"?

Norman Solomon
The Lobby and the Bulldozer

Stanley Heller
Time to Shake Up the Peace Movement

Jeff Birkenstein
Bush and Freedom of Speech

Evelyn J. Pringle
Not So Fast, Mr. Powell

Michael Donnelly
The Week the Bush Administration Fell Apart

Kamran Matin
Synergism of the Neo-Cons: What's Going On In Iran?

Website of the Day
"Don't Be Afraid of the Neo-Cons"

 

April 12, 2006

Vijay Prashad
Resisting Fences

Alan Maass
The Suicide of Anthony Soltero

Dave Lindorff
Bush's Insane First Strike Policy: If You Don't Want to Get Whacked, You'd Better Get Your Nation a Nuke ... Fast

Ron Jacobs
Resistance: the Remedy for Fear

Ramzy Baroud
The Imminent Decline of the American Empire?

Randall Dodd
How a Wal-Mart Bank will Harm Consumers

Missy Comley Beattie
The Boy President Who Cried "Wolf!"

P. Sainath
The Corporate Hijack of India's Water

Website of the Day
"The System is Irretrievably Corrupt"

 

April 11, 2006

Al Krebs
Corporate Agriculture's Dirty Little Secret: Immigration and a History of Greed

Lawrence R. Velvel
The Gang That Couldn't Leak Straight

Sonia Nettinin
Palestinian Health Care Conditions Under Israeli Occupation

Willliam S. Lind
The Fourth Plague Hits the Pentagon: Generals as Private Contractors

Robert Ovetz
Endangered Species in a Can: the Disappearance of Big Fish

Pratyush Chandra
Nepalis Say, "Ya Basta!"

Grant F. Smith
The Bush Administration's Final Surprise?

Laray Polk
Loud, Soft, Hard, Quiet: Marching Through Dallas for Immigrant Rights

Francis Boyle
O'Reilly and the Law of the Jungle: How to Beat a Bully on His Home Turf

José Pertierra
A Glimpse into the Mindset of Terrorists: Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch and the Downing of Cubana Flight 455

Website of the Day
The Dead Emcee Scrolls

 

April 10, 2006

Ralph Nader
Tinhorn Caesar and the Spineless Democrats

Heather Gray
Atlanta and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Uri Avnery
The Big Wink

Joshua Frank
Big Greens and Beltway Politics: Betting on Losers

Seth Sandronsky
Immigration and Occupations

Michael Leonardi
The Italian Elections: "Reality is No Longer Important"

Evelyn Pringle
Did Bush Pull a Fast One on Fitzgerald?

Tom Kerr
FoxNews Does Ward Churchill

Lucinda Marshall
The Lynching of Cynthia McKinney

Website of the Day
Brown Berets

April 7 -9, 2006

Alexander Cockburn
If Only They'd Hissed Barack Obama

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Saga of Magnequench: Outsourcing US Missile Technology to China

Patrick Cockburn
The War Gets Grimmer Every Day

David Vest
The Rebuking and Scorning of Cynthia McKinney

Dave Lindorff
The Impeachment Clock Just Clicked Forward

Gary Leupp
"Ideologies of Hatred:" What Did Condi Mean?

Elaine Cassel
The Moussaoui Trial: What Kind of Justice is This?

Saul Landau
Vietnam Diary: Hue Without Rules

James Ridgeway
"This is Betty Ong Calling": a Short Film

Ron Jacobs
Why Iran was Right to Refuse US Money

John Walsh
Kerry Advocates Iraqization: Too Little, Too Late

Ramzy Baroud
The US Attitude Toward Hamas: Disturbing Parallels with Nicaragua

Christopher Brauchli
Bush Finds Democracy Has Its Limits

Todd Chretien
What the Pentagon Budget Could Buy for America

Jonathan Scott
Javelins at the Head of the Monolith

John Bomar
What They're Saying About Bush in Arkansas

Michele Brand
Iran, the US and the EU

Ronan Sheehan
Remember When the Irish First Met the Chinese?

Mickey Z.
Let Us Now Praise OIL

Don Monkerud
March of the Bunglers

Michael Dickinson
The Rich Young Man: a Miracle Play

Website of the Weekend
The Case Against Israel and Munich: Compare and Contrast

 

 

April 6, 2006

John Ross
Mexico's Most Toxic Presidential Election Ever

Dave Lindorff
Time to Get on Message with the Sissy French

Don Monkerud
The Strange Case of the American Worker

Robert McDonald
The Texas Railroad to Death Row: How Prosecutors Fabricated a Case Against Rodney Reed

Boris Kagarlitsky
A Marriage of Convenience in Ukraine

Remi Kanazi
The Assault on Cynthia McKinney

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Untangling the Issues in the Immigration Debates

Robert Fisk
A Lesson from the Holocaust for Us All

 

April 5, 2006

Dick J. Reavis
Pancho Bin Laden and the Terrorists' Tombs

Mark Brenner
Workers in the Aftermath of Katrina: Survival of the Fittest

Brian Cloughley
Nailing the Lies: Come Clean, Mr. Bush

Jozef Hand-Boniakowski
Why Democrats Are At Least Half of the Problem

Matt Vidal
Republican Bliss: the Selfish Road to Happiness

Juan Santos
The Politics of Immigration: a Nation of Colonists and Race Laws

Alan Maass
Week of the Walkouts

JoAnn Wypijewski
Malevolent Power at Ft. Sill: the Army Slays Its Own

Website of the Day
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

 

April 4, 2006

Jackson Thoreau
How the Hammer Got Nailed: Taking Down Tom DeLay

Gary Corseri
Osama's Favorite Writer?: an Interview with William Blum

Dave Lindorff
Provocative Humanitarianism?: Bashing Hugo Chavez at the NYT

Paul Craig Roberts
Belligerent to the Bitter End

Norman Solomon
When War Crimes Are Unspeakable: Bush, Always the Accuser, Never the Accused

Michael Carmichael
The Christocrat: Condi Does Britain

Winslow T. Wheeler
Is the F-22 Worth the Price-Tag?

Ingmar Lee
Is Another World Possible?: Report from Karachi

Michael Neumann
The Israel Lobby and Beyond

Website of the Day
West Point Graduates Against the War

 

April 3, 2006

Saul Landau
Vietnam Diary: "What Socialism?"

Richard Thieme
The CIA: Cowboys, Indians and Whistleblowers, an Interview with David MacMichael

Timothy B. Tyson
Race, Class and Rape at Duke

Omar Barghouti
The Israeli Elections: a Decisive Vote for Apartheid

Iwasaki Atsuko
"As Israelis, We Also Fight for Palestinians:" an Interview with Jeff Halper

Julian Edney
A Terrible Weapon in the Hands of the Rich

Roger Morris
Catfight Among the Conservatives

 

April 1 / 2, 2006

Alexander Cockburn
Truth and Fiction in Elie Wiesel's "Night"

Ralph Nader
Exxon/Mobil: the Corporate Superpower of Superpowers

Dave Zirin
The Press Mob, Their Rope and Barry Bonds: Damn Right Race Matters

David Underhill
Walkin' to New Orleans

Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Do Immigrants Really Take Jobs from Urban Poor?

Dave Lindorff
Sen. Orrin Hatch: Defender of Presidential Lawlessness

P. Sainath
Where India's Brave New World is Headed

Fred Gardner
Debunking "Amotivational Syndrome"

Clancy Chassay
Hamas or Al Qaeda? The Gun or the Ballot Box?

Heather Gray
The Inspiring Face of Immigration: Australia and the American Rural Southeast

Greg Moses
Austin Students Walkout: "We're a Group This Country Needs"

John Chuckman
When the Violent Enforce the Peace: America's Brutal Tactics in Iraq

Ron Jacobs
Leaving Iraq Now is the Only Sensible Solution

Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week

Poets' Basement
Holt, Engel, Subiet, Ford and Davies

Website of the Weekend
Pentagon Thievery

 

 

Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition
May 6 / 7, 2006

Cinco De Mayo
By STEPHEN KIRBACH

as an alternative and newly needed declaration
of independence from a government not representative

governing from inside instead a textual unfolding as a form of footpath
that's personal and fluid

spoken as that and in its unfolding in short paragraphs
not that as a form of heirarchy
not socially distributed as power feeding into a chain of command
something which moves inward from scattered far reaches so spoken

and that being personal
it gets distributed

it gets distributed amongst friends
it gets distributed socially
what is a response to something otherwise unseen by another
but so what it gets anyway spoken

and conjures an own inner mexico
and conjures an own inner antinomy

urn worn uranium warn and a terminal bureaucratic collapse
where (am) I (am) witness to an internal relation between external
possibilities

and say so in words

Stephen Kirbach can be reached at: stephenm@main.nc.us

 

 

Sensational Aging
By SAUL LANDAU

That unpleasant sensation descended

Diffused light engaged in
Furious futile battle with
Falling night's absolute clarity

Time offered no help
Space closed abstract doors
Motion itself stood still

My parents vanished in
dark woods failed to
prepare me for obscurity

I complained
Of their
Ignorance of
zen Buddhism

My ancestors approached the
Inevitable the logical with
fear not the rage
of an impotent poet

Banalities backed by
References to Torah
Hardly filled me
with organic harmony

I began my trek
A frantic pale salmon
swimming upriver without
a reproductive mission

I refuse to admit
The fading of flight
glaucoma pressure under control
agony of the evening
advil for aching bones

come to terms I
whisper to myself with
sensations of overwhelming loneliness
children chatter friends banter

Have I miles to go?
Not kept some promises?

I own no woods
Nor forks in roads

I pay less at the
Movies act grouchy frequently
Lose patience peeing refuse

To admit I'm tired
Much of the Time

Am I in touch
With my soul a
carpenter's much pounded nail
Buried somewhere in a
Disagreeable mysterious wrinkled arena?

Saul Landau is the author of The Business of America.

 

An Imagined Painting
By ROBERT DAVIES

In so many Medieval paintings you see an infant
too large, but it is the Infant Jesus
the artist shows in proportion to his importance.
And in this, my imagined painting you see
that the men have engorged phalluses with arrow heads
the women, vaginas of huge hearts.

A circle of young women and one of men step
in opposite directions, in the foreground
and background pairs of young women and pairs of men
step variously outside the rings,
no group looking at the others.
I title this work " Pains of Adolescence."

Robert Davies lives in Portland, Oregon. He can be reached at: rjdavies@spiritone.com


Moussaoui
By FRANK B. FORD

Crazy while brown,
so blogger pegs

government conviction.
Other little brown nuts

take to streets. Least
among us show most guts.

Frank Ford among bloated vehicles in Florida. He can be reached at: frank_b_ford@yahoo.com

 

 

 

The Star-Spamgled Banner
El Himno Multi-Nacional
* automatically translated by Mort Subiet

Oh, say can you see them by the first light of the trowel,
so proudly we hailed, while flashing the last of twilight?
Who strips and brightens stars by dangerous fight,
O'er the ramparts, which we courageously watched?
And the red fulgor that rockets pumps exploding in air,
gave testimony that our opinion building flag was there.
Oh, that flag still star-spangled banner undulates
Óer the Earth of freedom and abode of the brave.

In the coast seen dimly through fog of the deep one,
where the host of foe in the silence of dread reposes,
that he is in the breeze, to o'er steep the high one,
because it establishes fitfully, hides, and half divulges?
Now it stops gleaming in the first beam of the morning,
in full glory reflected, and shinning down the stream:
Tis the studded-star-spangled flag that can wave
O'er the land of freedom and the rest of the brave.

And where is that bandage that so vauntingly swore
that damage of the war and the confusion of the battle,
home and country must leave us not more?
Washed outside the contamination of its revolting steps.
Nor refuge save the terror of flight or gloom of the tomb:
And the flag star-spangled in triumph will be shaking
Óer the Earth of triumph and home of the brave.

Oh! thus it is when freemen are between the lands
waters and desolations of the war! Blest victory peace,
heaven-saved compliment hath power in the fêz
and preserved as a nation.
It conquers us when our cause is a joust,
this our motto: "in the God of our confidence"
that the flag's star-spangled triumph will wave
O'er the land of freedom and the rest of the brave.


Mort Subiet's art work can be seen at the Third Page.

 

MEme
By ADAM ENGEL


MEme multiples of me myself waiting
me meat me
consumed by
ME-Tu-Mor-Us
Arachno-ME
ME

me meat descendant of cells in love
divided me
meat me

Calvinist Consumerist Machine
Me-Tu-Mor ME
forced upon meat me
MEdia stealth bomb
missiles ME Aggregate,
ME-Tu-Mor-Us
mea culpa, mea culpa

I've never been inside ME
but I hear ME-Tu-Mor-Us grows
hair and teeth, within,
eyes even, to outlive
Body Politic
our common host
benevolent, poisoned provider

MEme pumped into
music, viddy Oh
language barbs
wired with grammar
hologram MEme Body Politic
and me
surrounded by massive
ME-Tu-Mor-I
(possessed of all rights and privileges of
single natural individual cells)
out for LIFE: hungry, feasting on
Body Politic, poisoned provider,
and the me that hates ME in the mourning
loss of me to Me

Time erase memories of me
in Time
me makes me ME
ME-Tu-Mor-I
mea culpa
goose-stepping yes-ME
BODY POLITIC
loaned from Time

ME equates me with neighbors relatives tax-payers
of ME immortal
oh poor me (the name I call myself)
40 years without narrative;
scenes of mere being;
while omnipotent move-forward ME
made History linear
Time Mistory

poor secondary me recalls:
girls and music, grass and sunlight
me young mortal me
dissipate scatter
sentimental meat me
of the dead skin sunburn
soon consumed by
ME immortal
locked in the Tu-Mor-Nacle
cells within CELLS
expendable
billions of me for ME conglomerate of me's believe they're not a billion me's
at all but one omnipotent, immortal ME
continue murderous march of
slaughter devour death disperse
till nothing left of MEme
but ME

Adam Engel can be reached at bartleby.samsa@verizon.net

 

 

Global Warming
By PETER BUKNATSKI

 

you're in a mood
now and of course
it is something
I"ve done

can we work this out?
can we just move on?

I will not change
nor make choices
I am only me

you will show
how you give
and I take

you will threaten
that our time
has run out

and hurl accusations

but I can bear that
it's what I do now
what I've learned

your love was safe

I never thought
we could come
to such a state

there was an eternity

but now you make
demands I cannot
comprehend

have you gone mad?

I only want
to hold you close
to never let go

 

sometimes I think
you make too much
of things

I never said
I was perfect

I am only me
your lover

 

please
be nice


Peter Buknatski lives in Montpelier, Vt (over 10 Billion Candles Sold!--And Counting!). He can be reached at: pbuknatski@yahoo.com

 

What a Wonderful World
By JACKSON THOREAU

With apologies to Sam Cooke.

Don't know much 'bout hist'ry,
Don't know much fer'n policy,
Don't know much 'bout the troops who died,
Don't know why it matters that I lied.
But I do know who has paid my way,
For corp'rate int'rests and the NRA,
What a wonderful world this will be.

Don't know much 'bout the Patriot Act,
Don't know much 'bout Iran and Iraq,
Don't know much 'bout prison abuse,
In Texas we just used a noose.
But there's one thing that I know f'sure,
If the rich stay rich and po' stay po',
What a wonderful world this will be.

I never claimed to be an A student,
But I don't have to be,
If you have deep pockets and sell NU-KU-LAR rockets
You're a friend of my famileeeeeeeeee...

Don't know much 'bout air pollution,
Don't know much 'bout the Constitution,
Don't care much for solar energy,
There's nothing in it for m'friends and me.
And if we can't find any on our serl
We can go to war and get more earl,
And what a wonderful world this will be.

Don't know much 'bout the public schools,
Don't know much 'bout playing by the rules,
Don't know why the inner cities fail,
Why can't folks get Dad to pay for Yale?
And if my cheating that is causing you to lose
Is never covered by the ev'nin' news,
What a wonderful world this will be.

I never claimed to be an A student,
But I don't have to be,
If you have a broda who's Flor'da guv'na,
The result's no mystereeeeeeee.

Don't know much 'bout being a uniter,
Don't know much 'bout that big jet fighter,
Don't know 'bout paying a debt,
I ne'er had to pay one yet.
But if I control voting machines,
I will reach my empire dreams,
And what a wonderful world this will beeeeeeeeee..

Jackson Thoreau can be reached at: jacksonthor@gmail.com





 

 

 

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