you're not safe. nothing stands between you and victim status but whatever has kept you whole thus far. your father can't save you. your lover, the police, the government, suburbia, fear – and your god's in his heaven meditating on free will. at age seven I learned about nuclear war. that night, I sat my five-year-old sister down to share facts with her that had been so long withheld. I'm telling you this now. there will always be men unafraid to die and take you with them. men play football with pneumonia, broken ribs, hairline fractures to the spine that threaten to leave them paralyzed. they volunteer for wars over oil and pride, take up guns against enemies and innocents alike for a government that ignores their votes at will. women have sacrificed their bodies for uncounted centuries. in childbirth, for love, for country, for god, dressed as men to fight those same tainted wars, dressed as whores to survive – she too will make you a martyr to her end. Question: if a man can disable a flight staff with a pair of blunt tweezers, does he need the tweezers? yet scissors are confiscated, nail clippers pitched, laptops rattled and opened while tubes of hair gel filled with enough liquid C-4 to take down a fleet of DC-9s pass unexamined. cops study the driver's licenses of pedestrians while warplanes drop foodboxes onto ground littered with landmines this is not a new world. when have you been entirely safe? when have you -- woman, person of color, queer, small man, rich man -- walked the streets entirely untouchable? a man tracked my movements from 1990 until he was jailed in 1995. I lived in Des Plaines Illinois, where so much nothing ever happens the teenagers go to Park Ridge for kicks. yet it bred John Wayne Gacey, who ate boys' corpses for breakfast. yet it spawned Steven Josefow, who when finally arrested possessed hand-drawn blueprints of the houses of thirty-seven girls in the four surrounding suburbs and had only recently been fired from his job as a substitute teacher. there are children in Afghanistan, in Bosnia, in Cabrini Green Chicago who've known less than three nights in their lives without gunfire or bombs dropping without real and imminent threat to their lives. this is not a new world. look at your hands. are they red like mine?
also, i post poems i love a lot, and keep a record so i can find them again, check them out if you like: http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=hope_persists&keyword=poetry&filter=all
Hey thanks for the poem, and for reminding me of the creepiness in Des Plaines. One of the things I think of when people (family) wonder how I could want to live in the big scary city!
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From:
i don't know you, but here is a poem i love
Marty McConnell
you're not safe. nothing stands between you
and victim status but whatever
has kept you whole thus far. your father can't save you.
your lover, the police, the government, suburbia, fear –
and your god's in his heaven meditating on free will.
at age seven I learned about nuclear war. that night,
I sat my five-year-old sister down
to share facts with her that had been so long
withheld. I'm telling you this now.
there will always be men unafraid to die
and take you with them. men play football
with pneumonia, broken ribs, hairline fractures
to the spine that threaten to leave them paralyzed.
they volunteer for wars over oil and pride, take up guns
against enemies and innocents alike for a government
that ignores their votes at will.
women have sacrificed their bodies
for uncounted centuries. in childbirth, for love,
for country, for god, dressed as men to fight those same
tainted wars, dressed as whores to survive – she too
will make you a martyr to her end. Question:
if a man can disable a flight staff with a pair
of blunt tweezers, does he need the tweezers?
yet scissors are confiscated, nail clippers pitched,
laptops rattled and opened while tubes of hair gel
filled with enough liquid C-4 to take down a fleet
of DC-9s pass unexamined. cops study the driver's licenses
of pedestrians while warplanes drop foodboxes
onto ground littered with landmines this is not
a new world. when have you been entirely safe?
when have you -- woman, person of color, queer,
small man, rich man -- walked the streets entirely
untouchable? a man tracked my movements from 1990
until he was jailed in 1995. I lived in Des Plaines Illinois,
where so much nothing ever happens
the teenagers go to Park Ridge for kicks.
yet it bred John Wayne Gacey, who ate boys' corpses
for breakfast. yet it spawned Steven Josefow,
who when finally arrested possessed hand-drawn blueprints
of the houses of thirty-seven girls in the four
surrounding suburbs and had only recently been fired
from his job as a substitute teacher. there are children
in Afghanistan, in Bosnia, in Cabrini Green Chicago
who've known less than three nights in their lives
without gunfire or bombs dropping without real
and imminent threat to their lives. this is not
a new world. look at your hands.
are they red like mine?
also, i post poems i love a lot, and keep a record so i can find them again, check them out if you like: http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=hope_persists&keyword=poetry&filter=all
From:
Re: i don't know you, but here is a poem i love