Reading the The New York Times…

I didn’t kill anyone today

nor blow up car or truck

nor bomb an airplane

or throw a deadly grenade.

I targeted no mosque or church

neither did I torture, nor wound

or kidnap, or kill a Christian,

or a Jew, or a Muslim, not a woman, or child

or a black person, or a brown person and no Indian.

No man or woman died by my hand

not harmed for that matter.

no vengeful names were spoken,

no racial slurs or epitaphs were hurled at human beings.

We know the words – cracker, white boy, trailer trash,

nigger, jig, spic, Jew boy, Polock, greaser, wet back,

camel jockey, towel head, goyam – on and on

those word bullets, those word IEDs,

I didn’t kill anyone today.

But, I wrote a poem

And I’ll write another tomorrow

and another the day after.

to balance explosions with exploration

I say - hang poetry in the streets of Baghdad and Kabul

From artists around the world – not politicians,

not investment bankers, not business people,

not weapons makers – post poems.

Let poetry stop the war.

I’ll write the first one:

There are five million orphans in Iraq

who want to go out and play

could the grown ups get off of the jungle gyms

and give the poor kids their day.

Could the Sunnis put away their weapons

might the Shiites check in their guns

perhaps Americans will finally get the message
stop the money and send the whole circus home.

J.E. Dorsey – 11.05.10