Poem: Gilgamesh
Probably a bit pretentious. But I'd just read Derek Hines' wonderful translation of Gilgamesh and it had dawned on me for the first time that Ur -> Uruk -> Iraq. How old that region of the Earth is, and how entwined its history with war. Submitted to www.poetsagainstthewar.org in 2003.
Gilgamesh
The walls of Uruk now
are stenched with dust;
two-fifty klicks from Baghdad
as the coalition planes
stir shadows with the drone
of EM lock-on, target paint.
There was a king here, long ago
burned bridges sky-high;
war crimes stank to Heaven.
Hewed the cedar forests,
glared the Sun's dark rays,
spat out the plague
crashed finally, a comet
damned by stars themselves.
These satellites
know none of this;
they serve no god but Ada
and her consort SIPRNET.
The old songs bore them.
Hear instead the clicks of their
plutonic dreams;
an algorithmic envy
cold as Ishtar.
Were I Gilgamesh
and dredging that
eternal starlit black
I would say: do not seek
iron ore, petroleum, or bauxite
let them burn and rust
on battlefields
the victor shall not speak
in steel
put out your hand
and write your fate in clay.
