Oh say can you see by the dawn’s early light
Need 20,000 more soldiers in another country’s fight
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming
As we hear the voices of the terrified screaming
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
How long in Iraq, do we really think it’s right
O’er the ramparts red glare, the bombs bursting in air
to lose one more loved one we just couldn’t bear
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there
but keep the flag in America, not in a country that don’t care
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
over dead bodies of all those that gave
O’er the land of the free, and home of the brave
Let’s get out of Iraq, just see how many we save.
Semper Fi
I'm out startin’ fires on the Sun,
pumpin salt water into the Sea,
tossin’ boulders up onto mountain tops,
cuz without you, there's nothin’ for me.
Yes, with you gone, I've got pretty much nothin’,
since you up and left me last fall.
If it weren't for my gun, this sleepin bag and demon alcohol,
I'd have nothin’, no nothin’ at all.
Now I'm spittin’ lava into volcanoes,
makin’ ice cubes at the North Pole.
I’ve told you once, don't make me cry out once more,
since you've been gone, I almost got nothin’, climbin’ unscalable
walls.
If it weren't for my gun, this sleeping bag bed, and one last
curtain call,
I'd have nothin’, flat nothin’ at all.
it doesn't last
none of it
and it doesn't matter much
what I see
flying over
where I live
it passes
a man ain't granted pity
when you're not in somebody's reign
so what do you say to that?
nothing and then some
I have learned to pray
now that you’re gone
before you left
I thought of you often
now I think of you always
I hope against reason
all of my good wishes
will help you through this season
Still I wonder
how can it be
after all of this
that you loved to live
enough to have brought me here
nurtured my childish dreams
and stuck with me through thick and thin
At first I thought with great relief
I am free now
a man at last
then slowly I realized
that now I must be everything
I never thought that you asked of me
still loving you
now that you’re gone
This poem is dedicated to my handsome, intelligent husband, John L. Kennedy,
my beloved man and precious lover.
Those four months,
When you felt abandoned
That is what I finally tasted
As justice would see it done.
I explored every fragrant nuance,
As it swam across my tongue
Liquescent tendrils of unwanted sensation
In each labored weeping.
Only later, overnight it seemed,
When those deep fissures
Cut across your face did I learn how
You had welcomed the needle back in.
My cluttered mind,
Burdened with the unsayable
In both lit and shadowed places
My darksome eyes, with the iris blue
Still ponders the translucent cascade of words
I so willingly accepted as truth
Where no truth ever existed.
Now today, with my sterling silver crucifix,
Resting in the milky white valley between my breasts
I am sated with what you give me
Like a hand within a silken glove
We fit each other perfectly.
Speeding toward the darkness,
Of closed lids, that is the comfort we seek
But our beleaguered love with so many ghosts
Between us does not diminish the heat of our
Locked embrace or the perfumed tallow of your hair
As I breathe it in at rest.
The ghosts continue their weary circling,
Unnoticed as Cyclamen veins on the petal
And I am once again reminded:
Such is the will of God to endow and deprive.
