Natepod The weblog of Nate Cull

Poem: ‘01

After Afghanistan, before Iraq. That gut feeling: 'Oh God NO!' Seeing America signing her death warrant, yoking her future to a reborn Cold War, running eagerly, insanely to death like a child across a highway. A stark vision of perpetual war come home the only way it could, as civil war. It hasn't happened yet: I'd say God forbid, but can even God forbid a path that has not yet been unchosen?

'01

There was a dream I had
it went like this:
black wings among the clouds
a fractured hiss

of gas escaping
in the broken night
and ghosts among the rubble
bone-slick white

there was no sun at all
it had been weeks
since rain had stirred the cracked
and oil-drowned peaks

of ruined gallerias,
churches, banks
the freeways choked with
rusting trackless tanks

and coldly glowing cancer
burned my eyes;
I walked as fast I could.
The haunted skies

resounded with the shrieks
of wounded jets
they spiralled down in fury.
I forget

the weeks I wandered,
lost and dazed
somehow I found a green
secluded grave

there lay a single headstone
sketched in chalk
'Here lies America the Great.
She trusted War.'

Poem: Blood

After Afghanistan, or in the run-up to it. I guess I was going for something of the rhythm of Auden's 'September 1, 1939' which saturated the Net in those weeks.

The big moral question put to me was: Our brave men in uniform are willing to give their lives for our 'freedom', who are YOU to object?

And it's still a good question. On what authority can I call fighting people to peace, when peace for them may mean desolation of all they hold sacred? What am I willing to sacrifice for peace, if peace indeed comes by sacrifice?

I never did travel to a war zone. I would like to support those peace workers who do go though.

Blood

You say that only blood
can wash the earth -

of crime, and terror,
bankers' debts accrued

that pain has been the
engine of rebirth

since heroes learned to hate
the gods they slew -

I see your talking mouths
on every screen

in concrete bunkers
or in boardroom chairs

resplendent in your passion,
you careen

from holocaust to jihad
and declare

"Our noble cause is righteous -
None before

Have chanced upon this
Whiter, Brighter, Way

This is our best salvation:
Total war

This is your only freedom:
To obey"

and we, who after decades
of command

have learned to kiss the bomb
and serve the fries

forgive us if we do not
understand

why demons lurk
in starving children's eyes

You say that blood is power -
then this blood

of mine, perhaps, will travel
to a place

where righteous missiles
rain in killing flood

from holy satellites
in Western space

And if my blood should stand
between the stars

and oil seeping from the
broken land

perhaps I would be justified
to ask

that Time put down her gun,
reach out her hand

And if not - love has fortunes,
same as war

And blood for blood breeds blood -
but love breeds more.

Poem: Geodesics

From 2001 - before 9/11. Surfing for images of the 1964 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows (and that was before Google Earth). Rumours that a geodesic dome had survived and was being used by the zoo. A piece of iconic furniture, quietly rotting away like most of Buckminster Fuller's visions - too far ahead of their time, yet a time that must surely come.

I visited in 2002 but never did see that dome. I hope it's in good shape.

Geodesics

Through splash of autumn trees, a dome
- bright flash of metal-fire
silver meshwork gleaming dimly
overhung with twilight vines

I remember geodesics
crisp in magazine-gloss
the smell of holographic futures
inflatable homes and gardens

The prefab world we bought those mornings
faded under windswept skies
- slow fall into adulthood
knowledge bleak as winter dawn

Somewhere snowdrifts bury radomes
drydocked gunboats rust in peace
Echelon unplugged - a dance of voices
remapping the flat Earth to a sphere