We like to bomb from 30,000 feet,
fly back to Whiteman, MO after the run,
then drive to the mall for something to eat,
Or wire funds to the guys who buy the guns
that jab into the backs of old women
who stagger away from burning homes.
We don’t do firing squads, rape rooms, mass graves,
midnight arrests; we think we don’t know how.
A GI is a big buzz-cut guy who saves
The cowering victims of a foreign war,
or despotism, or incompetence.
We can even oust regimes from afar.
Dick and Lynne, in the VP’s residence,
once more shoulder the burden to maintain
security, order, and common sense.
They’re grandparents with degrees, guardians
of churches, agencies, and industries:
they know just how to handle ruffians.
Saddam built his own Lubyanka, grim and dank.
Isaiah asked: “How hath the oppressor ceased?”
The new commandant of Abu Ghraib’s a Yank.
And Babylon shall be as Sodom and
Gomorrah; by her shall we sit and weep.
Category Archives: verse and worse
a free novel on this site
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In 1995, I published a mystery with St. Martin’s Press, entitled Something to Hide. I then wrote another novel, a thriller called Tongues of Fire. I accumulated some flattering letters from publishers, but no contract offers for this second book of fiction. Yesterday, it suddenly occurred to me that I should give it away on my website. That’s the 21st-century way, after all. Click here to read the beginning and then download the whole thing if it appeals to you.
By way of background: Tongues of Fire is a thriller set just before the Second World War. The Nazis believe that they will gain enormous power if they can put together the shards of a universal language that are preserved in the various occult traditions of the world. Our skeptical hero, an American linguistic professor, begins to investigate their plot only because he has been forced into service by a Soviet agent (who is the main female character).
This isn’t Literature, but I think it’s fun. It’s also slightly “educational,” since the plot revolves around some issues in the philosophy of language. If one person enjoys the online version, that will be one more person than if I had left it on my hard-drive.