September 20, 2001
An Ode for an Afghani Mother, Who, upon Arriving at the Name Registration Office to Change her Sixteen Year Old Son's Name, with his Permission, from Mohammed to Smith, Finds the Office Destroyed
To pulverize the terror still at hand
Annihilate the turban and the beard
To strafe and re-strafe every grain of sand
Destroy the camel driver he so feared
The stated goal that "we will end these states"
Who harbor thugs,
boxcutter slasher fiends led by bushy-bearded clerics
Who wage 'jihad' and spew so many hates
with their 'fatwas,' their hysterics
'Wanted: Dead or Alive,' not folks but hell-hounds legion
We'll never do another thing 'til we smite them in their region
One fleeing mom of six in Kabul said
"Afghanis aren't your enemies, we're dead
Already, don't you see our women bashed
By men too whipped to know they're being lashed
I've never had a right to lose or choose
I'm simple, women like me ever use
Whatever paltry nothing we can find
We tend our caves, our huts, our tents, our goat
Our mountains, deserts, unforgiving, blind
Our throats so parched we've never seen a boat
Restraining evil's rage must be your goal
Not setting fires anew in this hell-hole
You can't bomb us back to the first Stone Age
We've never left that pre-Historic page
Uzbeki, Turki, Paki, Kurdi, Tajeki and every other 'Stan'
These are our homelands, we live how we can"
So volunteer across America
Buy and fly our flags at record rate
For what?, it leads us to Hysterica
And deaths of Sikhs we shouldn't hate
Let's mobilize to serve, anesthetize our pain
Don't analyze, just act; rationalize - insane
Is this what we Americans now mean
To smear the filth of others makes us clean
Reshines our honor, raises towers new
We're still the many; they are still the few
Towers are Babel speechifying air
We need to sound the All Clear, with a death-defying stare
Why not re-build with eyes of human size
in this great land of the free
Why not NOT bomb and win the human prize
in this great land of the free
Copyright 2001