‘Ode to Guantanamo’
EarthSourceMedia Reports for April 18th, 2009
‘Ode to Guantanamo’
by joey racano
“Popular culture
as viewed through a mulcher
People in charge
on bones like a vulture
Brain’s being filled
children being killed
A boy ain’t a man
’till blood has been spilled
playing video games
then flying jet planes
Come out from the orchard
it’s time to be tortured”
The heavy metal gates clanged shut, echoing around the compound like the lowest note on a piano. Like always, I looked toward the low-hung ceiling, talking to God just ‘neath my breath- “Thank you, lord, for giving me this chance to help America, keep ‘er safe. Thank you, Jesus, for the chance to get this towel head off the streets of Bahgdad, away from good christians-to-be. And most of all lord, thank you for making sure the next one tortured won’t be me’”
Behind the nameless doors, faceless prisoners counted the footsteps; seven, eight, nine- “Oh no, nine! That means me!’ Oh please, Allah, Yahwie, Jesus, Jahovah- make it fast, don’t let it last’. I have been a good man, a servant of divinity. Of self, of family, of duty.”
The keys jingled their song of menace, like a wind chime in the halls of hell. Handsome young men in starched uniforms and perfect haircuts siezed the prisoner by the arms, slipped netting over his face and marched him to the gurney. It was time.
I filled the water buckets with precision, every movement, every sound, designed for maximum terror. I started out one drip at a time, one drop, drip, drop, ployp, plip, ployp, plip…
Then the water rushed bucketward like an angry North Dakota river, and the drip-drop of our young prisoners tears may as well have been my imagination. I tried hard to reconcile the irony of it all; trying to be creative in my quest to cause this prisoner terror, yet he was the terrorist. Hmm. We laid him on the gurney upside down, feet toward the ceiling, and it reminded me of the crucifixion of Christ.
“Blub blub’, he said, ‘blub blub!”
A gurgle and a lie
“Arg, ahh, he went, argh ahh-
God, please don’t let me die!”
We finished with him 11 days later
knowing that America had become that much greater
And though we avoided church and so the eyes of our creator
we knew deep down we would answer to him later
And finally, -a confession! That dirty rotten slime!
Not only was he a terrorist, he was guilty of the crime
of wanting to be different from what we hold so dear
like Jesus mom and apple pie and TV’s full of fear
I went back down to my underground and turned the TV on
and witnessed 14 murders, a game show and a don;
I knew right then that we were right
and the towel heads must die!
Thank you lord, for letting me serve
now, please excuse me, I must cry”
a poet and a patriot
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