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GUANTANAMO poem in selection of poems on various topics and themes, including America, Japan, Malawi and Guantanamo.
This GUANTANAMO poem is part of the Genghis Lotus Poetry Collection, a selection of poems free to read online. The collection includes school poems, city poems, nature poems, war poems, cancer poems, death poems, and, additionally, other poems, assorted poems on various topics and themes, this being one of those other poems. Webmaster for this site is poet Hugh Cook, born in Britain, educated in New Zealand, and the author of, amongst other works, the fantasy series Chronicles of an Age of Darkness. For this poem, explanatory notes are at the foot of the text of the poem. Click for notes Click for poem |
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The white rat Guantanamo is, I have decided, An enemy of the state. I have incarcerated him And hold him incommunicado. For this reason, There has been no bombing in the city of Boston All summer long. The white rat Guantanamo Is an illegal combatant, Leagued with the cockroach and the termite. I have no evidence of this, But know The World Trade Center Must not fall again. In the days of Saddam Hussein, America was afflicted by trans fat, Handgun killings, Bubonic plague and leprosy. With that rationale, We made war upon Iraq, And purged the planet of our discontents. Righteous with victory, I lord it over Guantanamo. He annoys me, at times, With his unrelenting squeaking. He wants a lawyer, a court hearing, And a list of the charges against him. Oh, and a bill of goods, that, too: You know, the legal thingy, The document which lays it on the line, Which sets it out, In black and white, Exactly what it is you've gone and done. All that he wants, and more: Free movie tickets, vanilla ice cream, Chocolate cake And Cuban cigars. Well, dream on, Guantanamo! He complains That he misses his wife, That his elderly mother, Who is not in good health, Is surely soon to die, And that his children Are growing up without him. Well, squeak on, Guantanamo! Certain detractors Would distract us from the purity of our purpose. They allege That there are other issues: Global warming, Genocide in Darfur, Burnt rice in cooking pots in China And the self-starvation of fashion models in Brazil. You know the drill. But I, I am committed to my plan. Stay the course, that's my thing. Task focus. While the white rat Guantanamo is incarcerated, The world is safe. And he is paying the price For what was done to us. Thousands dead, the falling hundreds Leaping to their doom. Well, someone must pay for that, And, to tell the truth, I'm really not too fussed about Exactly who. Revenge is a dish best eaten Any way you can get it. Charlie Chaplin, Mickey Mouse, The supreme commander of the Klingon Empire, Or Eva Braun. Anyone will do. For the time being, All I have is the white rat Guantanamo. And that, for the moment, Is all I need. |
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May be photocopied for classroom use |
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• Guantanamo, also known as Gitmo, is an American enclave in Cuba which was used by the regime of President George W. Bush to hold prisoners in a place which the regime insisted was beyond the realms of the rule of law.
Prisoners were held without being charged with any criminal offence, without being brought before a court, and without knowing what evidence, if any, there was against them. Some of these people were entirely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever, but were incarcerated for years before being released. On being released, they did not receive an explanation, or an apology, or compensation. Some of the prisoners had been tortured before being incarcerated in Guantanamo, this torture being at the behest of the American President and his regime, and some were abused in Guantanamo itself. • Bubonic plague is a disease which persists in the United States, where it hides out in the wilderness in colonies of gophers. Occasionally, unsuspecting hikers come home with it. • Leprosy, the politically correct term for which is Hansen's Disease, is an illness which causes nerve damage. The ability to feel pain is compromised, resulting, at times, in horrific disfigurement caused by repeated injuries which the patient quite simply does not fee. Modern medicine developed a cure long ago, and an afflicted person who has completed a course of treatment is no longer infectious. One place where you can find leprosy in the United States is in the cosmopolitan city of New York, where you can find pretty much anything, from ancient European art treasures to small animal sacrifices. • Saddam Hussein was an extremely evil dictator who ruled Iraq for many years. He was an ally of America, which supported him in his rule against Iran. For many years, American governments ignored the fact that Saddam was a mass murderer, seeing him as being a rational tyrant in the mold of Joseph Stalin, sometime ruler of the Soviet Union, someone who could be relied upon as a bulwark against the threat of Islamic extremism. Saddam lost America's friendship when, possessed by megalomaniac dreams of becoming a world historical figure, he began to enlarge his domains by invading Kuwait, a nation which was very definitely an American ally, and which had oil to bring to the alliance. A lot of oil. To those who lived through those days, it may seem silly to provide a note to explain who Saddam Hussein was. But if you were to ask a randomly-selected bunch of teenagers who Hitler was, you might be surprised at some of the replies you got. • The "legal thingy" which the speaker of the poem has trouble identifying is a bill of particulars, a document which lays our the specifics of the criminal behavior which is alleged against you. In any society which ascribes to the rule of law, you are entitled to have the charges against you spelt out in detail. Exactly what is it that you are supposed to have done? And when? And with what consequences? The decision made by George W. Bush and his regime was to abandon the rule of law and to resort, instead, to torture, kidnapping, the abuse of force and detention without trial. In some cases people were actually murdered after having been kidnapped by the CIA and before being delivered to Guantanamo, one case involving a man who was held prisoner by the Americans in Afghanistan, and who was murdered in an extremely callous fashion by being forced outside, naked, in conditions so cold that human survival was not possible. Pretty much the entire planet was of the opinion that this course of action was not a good idea, but President Bush and his team were entirely indifferent to all the good advice they were given. In the name of liberty, George W. Bush and his team became kidnappers, torturers and murderers, but unfortunately there was no war crimes tribunal to hold them to account for the abuses which they, knowingly, had engineered. Click for Poem |
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