WHISPERS

ingesting remnants of carcasses

swallowed pride

force fed excrement they tried to pass off as a five star meal

as the lies make their way down your throat

suffocation

their testicles in your mouth

purificationas digested lies give birth

to expelled truths

Vietnam

Iraq

Serbia

Haiti

Sudan

Japan

Darfur

Guantanimo Bay

Abu Ghraib

cover ups exposed

like her

garments ripped from her body

14 years old

acts committed too horrible for the merciful to comprehend

as others who have borne this pain and legacy

look down from heaven

heads shaking and arms spread

to accept another into their fold

11-year-old girl from Kosovo

12-year-old Okinawa girl

when the keepers of peace

cant be trusted not to shatter it

violated under cover of fire

blasts like fireworks on that fourth setting of the moon

on that 7th month

smoke clears

bodies strewn

count them

each one an attempt at sin hidden

torture chambers become life

and life seems the lesser choicewhen the question is posed:

life or death?

chambers of semi automatic guns, like dragons,

spitting steel-tipped fire

memories of steel-tipped boots

grounding your face into the dirt as the cries of the inhumane plague your sanity

grains of rock dig into sun-kissed flesh

son kissed flesh

marring the beauty that God did create

threat of death looming low overhead like a noose

ring of rope

destroyer of hope

or so they think

reaching for you like a lasso

determined to snare souls

round them up like cattle

their own special branding

bodies dragged behind beds of pick-up trucks

badges and ink-black sky offer all the cover needed

disfigured, marred beauty

head, neckfound miles from mangled torso

can't quite make out how handsome he used to be

my boy James

Deeds of the souless

celebrated at tables where Lucifer dines with men

fields where the spirits of the deceased do battle with forces of evil

no rest for souls of the dead who perished in fits of rage over injustice

apparitions of the long gone and long forgotten

yearning for the Lord's vengeance against

masters of evil

axis of evil

a turn of phrase

annihilate

subjugate a people

strange bedfellows they make:justice and torture

clandestine affairs

secrets released,

like whispers

into the ears of harlots