Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.
Janet Aalfs
46 years old
Northampton, MA
Poet & writer, community peace activist, head instructor Valley Women's Martial Arts. Recent book: Reach (Perugia Press, 1999). Included in A Fierce Brightness: 25 Years of Women's Poetry (Calyx, 2002).
Citizen of a Superpower Sits At Abd El-Hadi's Table
Where I come from, Abd El-Hadi, we're not encouraged to listen
to the quiet falling from a single tree no longer standing
by your path, or to notice the acrid breath of a single calf
led to the slaughter. We're told to keep our chins up.
The constant prattle numbs. Imagine one whole day Abd El-Hadi
in my country when no one makes a peep. Even crying babies
stop as the air softens and swells. We'd feel the jolt
of the "Enterprise" landing in your yard, flattening the round-eyed cat
and the generous hen flatter than the moon's reflection in the pond
now burning. We'd hear doors around the globe
opening into their own intricate music, and yours,
Abd El-Hadi, oil spitting in the pan you heat for the flight crew, weary, unable to speak
as one by one you crack your last eggs into the fire. ____________________
Note: This poem is in response to Taha Muhammad Ali's poem -- "Abd El-Hadi Fights a Superpower" (Never Mind). Abd El-Hadi is the semi-mythological character of the Fool.
LINES ON A MAP
man standing arms crossed woman crouched both grinning
for the camera as if at a carnival where they've won the
Operation Freedom bomb toss and now the prize
in the foreground a mound where the pair of soldiers could be
about to plant red-white-and-blue carnations though
it is a pile of naked bodies a green bag over each prisoner's head
even at a great distance in a sunlit kitchen holding this
silent gasp scent of coffee and warm bread
breathing not breathing a single white tulip opens
in the yard wind bending the tender stem petals' thin
