Dick Cheney's book and 9/11
With today's publication of Dick Cheney's In My Time, and the forthcoming events planned to recognize the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001, I find myself thinking about this past decade and how so many of our civil bonds have frayed or split, some of them perhaps beyond repair. Here's a poem from Deniability that touches (a bit michievously) on one of the vice president's misadventures while hunting:
FRIENDLY FIRE
That dog won’t hunt, nor ostrich fly,
that trout won’t hasten to the hook.
That exit strategy’s a joke
crusaders whisper while they die.
The rationale’s irrational,
mission misallied, delicious
lie from tongues entwined when business
interests coincide. That skull
won’t house another soul, which roams
untethered, restlessly between,
cannot ascend, by none redeemed
or mourned, light withering to gloam.
Our maddened hounds have fled to chase
the shades of flightless birds. Undone
we blindly fire into the sun,
that witness prayer won’t erase.
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About George
George Witte is the author of two collections of poems, Deniability (2009) and The Apparitioners (2005), both available from Orchises Press. His work has been published in Best American Poetry 2007, received Poetry magazine's Frederick Bock prize, and was...