Poetry
Hello Paradise, Paradise Goodbye. Part 23
Clive Matson
Hello, paradise. Paradise, goodbye.
“The setting sun makes the skyline
bend like crooked teeth in a mouth
that’s devouring us all.” (Ad. fr. Death Cab for Cutie “Crooked Teeth”)
1950s’ pilots circle back from North Korea
armed and primed ordinance still in the bays
undropped.
Broken chimneys in the crosshairs,
rubble, charred ground. No targets.
“We bombed them back to the stone age.”
One death is too many. One.
“The lives of Libyans, Iraqis, Afghanis, Sudanese, Pakistanis,
Koreans, Somalis, Syrians, Yemenis
never occur to them to matter.” (Elana Levy)
Portfolios of Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Northrop,
Lockheed Martin and the rest
grow fatter
“Support the troops,” shouts modern-day hippie,
tie-dye t-shirt, daisy in hat,
fiftieth anniversary Summer of Love,
“Bring the troops home from Nam!”
From Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Pakistan,
Croatia, Greece, Hong Kong, Guam, South Korea, Japan.
And the rest. All the rest.
“Tell me, what are the children of Afghanistan
wearing this year? Do they gleam phosphorus?
Do they trail down the streets liquid red chiffon?” (ad. fr. Marilyn Buck via Elana Levy)
Have a real conversation, media, N.Y. Times.
If you know what that is.
U.S. Joint Special Operations Command
states of one hundred ninety-five nations
America’s troops deploy to one hundred thirty-eight.
One hundred thirty-eight nations
where they don’t belong.
One nation is too many. One.
“Stop the Lie,” scrawled in black
across red stop-signs. “Stop the Lie.”
“Make Venezuela fucking cool again”
failed US’s sixty-eighth covert overthrow
of a sovereign government. A fire sale
of Venezuela’s oil, minerals, utilities
would have followed,
pushing poverty toward
no education, no healthcare, no food.
“I bet you had em' seein' stars
I know just how good you are
You always make ‘em crazy crazy.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
America responsible for thirty million deaths
since World War II.
And counting,
Western culture responsible for twice thirty mil
and counting. Counting.
Three thousand Twin Towers deaths
plus three hundred firemen and counting
required
for public outrage. Required.
One death is too many. One.
Feed me. Feed me lies so I’ll never know the facts.
Start a conversation, media.
A real conversation.
If you know what that is.
Put a right-hand column front page daily New York Times
the latest 9/11 news,
research, science, arguments, money, confessions.
The same segment first in tv, radio, online news.
Left hand column: African-American and Amerindian
reparations and issues.
Down the center: climate disruption.
Across the bottom: military research and who our troops are killing.
Across the top: what billionaire cliques are doing.
New news when you open the paper every day,
“What fresh hell is this?” (Dorothy Parker)
“Stop the Lie,” scrawled in black
across red stop-signs. “Stop the Lie.”
Sixty drones and counting into the Mideast every day.
Eight out of ten deaths women, old men, children,
non-combatant young men
states the optimistic military.
Seven hundred-fifty thousand per drone
to one-point-two million dollars,
thirty-five thousand an hour to operate.
Multiply by twenty years and counting. Counting.
Do the math.
One million dollars plus or minus
to kill one targeted soldier plus or minus.
Way out of whack? Cost-effective?
By what measure? My taxes? Your taxes?
“Lives never occur to them to matter.” (Elana Levy)
Murderers. No other word. Murderers.
Follow the logic. You poor dumb ass.
Follow the logic. My poor dumb ass.
Who came from the womb with stub limbs
painted Agent Orange?
Who came through cargo doors
body bag tagged napalm?
Polystyrene added
so napalm sticks like “shit to a blanket,”
won’t scrape off
however fast you react.
Napalm plus white phosphorus
burns faster and twice as hot,
added by Pentagon professionals
with dark suits, ties, benefit packages, retirement plans.
“Lives never occur to them to matter.” (Elana Levy)
“Too hot! Too hot!” wailed nine-year-old Kim Phuc
running down the trail
away from her village spewing smoke.
Two days later surgeons excised charred meat,
bandages removed, Kim’s flesh exposed to air,
phosphorus napalm re-ignites at her bones.
Flames again,
burning flesh perfumes the air.
The people who kill people kill the planet.
“I hope I die before I’m old. (Ad. fr. The Who “My Generation” via Robert Peck 2019)
I hope I die before it blows.”
How many suffering? How many in Afghanistan?
Without Kunduz hospital? Without many hospitals?
One person burnt by napalm is too many. One.
“If you are not safe, I am not safe.” (Adapted fr. Allen Ginsberg)
“Endless war” slogan copied from jihadists
by USA military-industrial complex media.
“Stop the Lie,” scrawled in black
across red stop-signs. “Stop the Lie.”
Endless profits waved into existence
behind false flags. A gallery of false flags:
Gulf of Oman tankers burning
Iranian weapons of mass destruction
9/11 planes piloted by suicide Muslims
Gulf of Tonkin
Pretending Pearl Harbor won’t happen
The Maine.
History repeats itself. Manufactured history repeats itself.
“You always make ’em crazy crazy.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Hanging from a telephone wire.”
Watch your step. Watch your step.
“History is a living weapon in your hands.” (Di Prima, ibid.)
Plain-looking sapiens under fluorescent lights
on fourth floor, third Pentagon segment, reports
from research labs across the nation spread over
cherry wood tables, stainless steel tables, marble tables.
Strategy talk, numbers talk
in our language.
Our language, your money, our soldiers, your media, our name.
“Yippy-kai-yai-yippy, yippy-oh, yippy yay!” (John Paige ibid.)
Silence. Silence on viruses hinged to vaccines.
Bio-weapons, chemical weapons: silence.
Silence on bot soldiers impervious to pain.
On invisible nanos
ant-like squadrons geared to invade:
more silence.
Everything hidden and much worse,
chapter and verse:
our own government is our worst fucking enemy.
“Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
Washington beltway the richest
area on the planet. Beltway paved
with military contracts.
“That’s not asphalt, those’re crushed
thousand dollar bills.” Offices, businesses,
McMansions, six-figure incomes
linked with golden handcuffs.
Supported by one thing: our belief
in their lie. Our belief in their lie.
War makes money. For the war maker.
Watch your step. Watch your step.
Did you think we wouldn’t notice?
Did you think it isn’t obvious? Trump,
Obama, the Bushes and the rest?
Did you think we wouldn’t notice?
Wouldn’t notice the con-job
behind your righteous veil,
“American the beautiful, our flag still there”? (National anthem)
Waving in the wind, red, white, and blue?
Army ads, Air Force glamour, Navy, “Peace” postage stamps,
white skyscrapers
in blue heavens, “purple mountains majesty,”
flag waving over “amber fields of grain”? (Ad. fr.“America the Beautiful”)
“Stop the Lie,” scrawled in black
across red stop-signs. “Stop the Lie.”
Ali’s complaint, “Recruit me to travel
the world and kill people just like me?”
Fragging officers in Viet Nam?
Did you think our sweet, patriotic thoughts
wouldn’t corrode?
Wouldn’t transform from innocent roses
waving child-like in the garden
to thorns and thistles and grenades,
from disappointed to angry
to rage of the betrayed?
“Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
Candy-ass motherfuckers.
1992 tank column toward Baghdad
in full retreat, hundreds of “I surrender” white flags
wave and ripple on turrets and gun barrels.
Colin Powell requests gasoline sprayed
to saturation overhead
and orders the spark.
Saw-tooth mountains and cinnamon desert
that sunny afternoon the backdrop,
fuel-air bomb incinerates three thousand.
Burning flesh and burning gas jack up dioxide count.
A lot of hide. Three thousand times,
doubled:
first the lives, then dioxide.
Murderer. No other word. Murderer.
Tell us, Powell, who did you kill?
Did you get your bones?
Trump, getting your bones now?
Mr. American exceptionalism Obama?
Bush? Did you get your bones, Clinton?
The first Bush? Reagan? Carter? Ford? Nixon,
did you get your bones? Johnson, “Hey, hey, L.B.J.,
how many kids did you kill today?”
Kennedy? Eisenhower? Truman? Roosevelt?
Did you get your bones?
Our President elect Biden, will you get your bones?
“Act well your part, there all the honor lies.”
Coached, coiffed, foundationed, airbrushed psychopaths,
neocon coup strategists, silk and polyester,
cuff links and ties monochrome,
Rove, Bolton, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Leo Strauss, Rice
squat cross-legged on a pile of bones.
That’s some hide. That’s a lot of hide.
“Act well your part, there all the honor falls.”
Psychopaths all. All.
“Put this shit in your pipe and smoke it!”
We are ants
scurrying around under the Bushes.
Under the Koch brothers, Montgomery, Chase,
Penny Pritsker, Goldman Sachs, Forbes,
shadow families, the banks, the others.
Under Lockheed Martin,
DynCorp, Computer Scientist Corporation, AeroVironment,
and the rest. All the rest.
Put us to the test.
My beloved country. Your beloved country.
No excuse it’s what governments do,
that’s trance induced.
It’s motherfucking me, motherfuck.
It’s motherfucking you.
Our own government is our enemy.
“Liar, liar, pants on fire,
hanging from a telephone wire.”
Julian Assange filmed our soldiers laughing
as they machinegun foreign civilians.
Courage and heroics
to reveal the truth. And our government
cannot operate with truth.
Had to extradict, drug, arrest,
trump up charges, put Assange away.
The karma is ours. Whoever pulls the trigger.
“Stop the Lie,” scrawled in black
across red stop-signs. “Stop the Lie.”
You think we won’t remember?
We remember. Our hearts remember.
“We are threads in a single garment (Ad. fr. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)
of destiny, inextricably woven together.”
“This land is your land, this land is my land.” (Woodie Guthrie)
Darkness surrounds and what the hell,
“Buy a goddam big car and drive!” he said. (Robert Creeley)
Smoke, she said. Screw, he said. Fight, she said.
Happy go lucky, singing a song.
How could we go so terribly wrong?
“Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
“I’m not going to cry.
I’ll just say goodbye, paradise” (Lee Marcus, ibid.)
“The setting sun makes the skyline
bend like crooked teeth in a mouth
that’s devouring us all.” (Ad. fr. Death Cab for Cutie “Crooked Teeth”)
1950s’ pilots circle back from North Korea
armed and primed ordinance still in the bays
undropped.
Broken chimneys in the crosshairs,
rubble, charred ground. No targets.
“We bombed them back to the stone age.”
One death is too many. One.
“The lives of Libyans, Iraqis, Afghanis, Sudanese, Pakistanis,
Koreans, Somalis, Syrians, Yemenis
never occur to them to matter.” (Elana Levy)
Portfolios of Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Northrop,
Lockheed Martin and the rest
grow fatter
“Support the troops,” shouts modern-day hippie,
tie-dye t-shirt, daisy in hat,
fiftieth anniversary Summer of Love,
“Bring the troops home from Nam!”
From Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Pakistan,
Croatia, Greece, Hong Kong, Guam, South Korea, Japan.
And the rest. All the rest.
“Tell me, what are the children of Afghanistan
wearing this year? Do they gleam phosphorus?
Do they trail down the streets liquid red chiffon?” (ad. fr. Marilyn Buck via Elana Levy)
Have a real conversation, media, N.Y. Times.
If you know what that is.
U.S. Joint Special Operations Command
states of one hundred ninety-five nations
America’s troops deploy to one hundred thirty-eight.
One hundred thirty-eight nations
where they don’t belong.
One nation is too many. One.
“Stop the Lie,” scrawled in black
across red stop-signs. “Stop the Lie.”
“Make Venezuela fucking cool again”
failed US’s sixty-eighth covert overthrow
of a sovereign government. A fire sale
of Venezuela’s oil, minerals, utilities
would have followed,
pushing poverty toward
no education, no healthcare, no food.
“I bet you had em' seein' stars
I know just how good you are
You always make ‘em crazy crazy.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
America responsible for thirty million deaths
since World War II.
And counting,
Western culture responsible for twice thirty mil
and counting. Counting.
Three thousand Twin Towers deaths
plus three hundred firemen and counting
required
for public outrage. Required.
One death is too many. One.
Feed me. Feed me lies so I’ll never know the facts.
Start a conversation, media.
A real conversation.
If you know what that is.
Put a right-hand column front page daily New York Times
the latest 9/11 news,
research, science, arguments, money, confessions.
The same segment first in tv, radio, online news.
Left hand column: African-American and Amerindian
reparations and issues.
Down the center: climate disruption.
Across the bottom: military research and who our troops are killing.
Across the top: what billionaire cliques are doing.
New news when you open the paper every day,
“What fresh hell is this?” (Dorothy Parker)
“Stop the Lie,” scrawled in black
across red stop-signs. “Stop the Lie.”
Sixty drones and counting into the Mideast every day.
Eight out of ten deaths women, old men, children,
non-combatant young men
states the optimistic military.
Seven hundred-fifty thousand per drone
to one-point-two million dollars,
thirty-five thousand an hour to operate.
Multiply by twenty years and counting. Counting.
Do the math.
One million dollars plus or minus
to kill one targeted soldier plus or minus.
Way out of whack? Cost-effective?
By what measure? My taxes? Your taxes?
“Lives never occur to them to matter.” (Elana Levy)
Murderers. No other word. Murderers.
Follow the logic. You poor dumb ass.
Follow the logic. My poor dumb ass.
Who came from the womb with stub limbs
painted Agent Orange?
Who came through cargo doors
body bag tagged napalm?
Polystyrene added
so napalm sticks like “shit to a blanket,”
won’t scrape off
however fast you react.
Napalm plus white phosphorus
burns faster and twice as hot,
added by Pentagon professionals
with dark suits, ties, benefit packages, retirement plans.
“Lives never occur to them to matter.” (Elana Levy)
“Too hot! Too hot!” wailed nine-year-old Kim Phuc
running down the trail
away from her village spewing smoke.
Two days later surgeons excised charred meat,
bandages removed, Kim’s flesh exposed to air,
phosphorus napalm re-ignites at her bones.
Flames again,
burning flesh perfumes the air.
The people who kill people kill the planet.
“I hope I die before I’m old. (Ad. fr. The Who “My Generation” via Robert Peck 2019)
I hope I die before it blows.”
How many suffering? How many in Afghanistan?
Without Kunduz hospital? Without many hospitals?
One person burnt by napalm is too many. One.
“If you are not safe, I am not safe.” (Adapted fr. Allen Ginsberg)
“Endless war” slogan copied from jihadists
by USA military-industrial complex media.
“Stop the Lie,” scrawled in black
across red stop-signs. “Stop the Lie.”
Endless profits waved into existence
behind false flags. A gallery of false flags:
Gulf of Oman tankers burning
Iranian weapons of mass destruction
9/11 planes piloted by suicide Muslims
Gulf of Tonkin
Pretending Pearl Harbor won’t happen
The Maine.
History repeats itself. Manufactured history repeats itself.
“You always make ’em crazy crazy.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Hanging from a telephone wire.”
Watch your step. Watch your step.
“History is a living weapon in your hands.” (Di Prima, ibid.)
Plain-looking sapiens under fluorescent lights
on fourth floor, third Pentagon segment, reports
from research labs across the nation spread over
cherry wood tables, stainless steel tables, marble tables.
Strategy talk, numbers talk
in our language.
Our language, your money, our soldiers, your media, our name.
“Yippy-kai-yai-yippy, yippy-oh, yippy yay!” (John Paige ibid.)
Silence. Silence on viruses hinged to vaccines.
Bio-weapons, chemical weapons: silence.
Silence on bot soldiers impervious to pain.
On invisible nanos
ant-like squadrons geared to invade:
more silence.
Everything hidden and much worse,
chapter and verse:
our own government is our worst fucking enemy.
“Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
Washington beltway the richest
area on the planet. Beltway paved
with military contracts.
“That’s not asphalt, those’re crushed
thousand dollar bills.” Offices, businesses,
McMansions, six-figure incomes
linked with golden handcuffs.
Supported by one thing: our belief
in their lie. Our belief in their lie.
War makes money. For the war maker.
Watch your step. Watch your step.
Did you think we wouldn’t notice?
Did you think it isn’t obvious? Trump,
Obama, the Bushes and the rest?
Did you think we wouldn’t notice?
Wouldn’t notice the con-job
behind your righteous veil,
“American the beautiful, our flag still there”? (National anthem)
Waving in the wind, red, white, and blue?
Army ads, Air Force glamour, Navy, “Peace” postage stamps,
white skyscrapers
in blue heavens, “purple mountains majesty,”
flag waving over “amber fields of grain”? (Ad. fr.“America the Beautiful”)
“Stop the Lie,” scrawled in black
across red stop-signs. “Stop the Lie.”
Ali’s complaint, “Recruit me to travel
the world and kill people just like me?”
Fragging officers in Viet Nam?
Did you think our sweet, patriotic thoughts
wouldn’t corrode?
Wouldn’t transform from innocent roses
waving child-like in the garden
to thorns and thistles and grenades,
from disappointed to angry
to rage of the betrayed?
“Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
Candy-ass motherfuckers.
1992 tank column toward Baghdad
in full retreat, hundreds of “I surrender” white flags
wave and ripple on turrets and gun barrels.
Colin Powell requests gasoline sprayed
to saturation overhead
and orders the spark.
Saw-tooth mountains and cinnamon desert
that sunny afternoon the backdrop,
fuel-air bomb incinerates three thousand.
Burning flesh and burning gas jack up dioxide count.
A lot of hide. Three thousand times,
doubled:
first the lives, then dioxide.
Murderer. No other word. Murderer.
Tell us, Powell, who did you kill?
Did you get your bones?
Trump, getting your bones now?
Mr. American exceptionalism Obama?
Bush? Did you get your bones, Clinton?
The first Bush? Reagan? Carter? Ford? Nixon,
did you get your bones? Johnson, “Hey, hey, L.B.J.,
how many kids did you kill today?”
Kennedy? Eisenhower? Truman? Roosevelt?
Did you get your bones?
Our President elect Biden, will you get your bones?
“Act well your part, there all the honor lies.”
Coached, coiffed, foundationed, airbrushed psychopaths,
neocon coup strategists, silk and polyester,
cuff links and ties monochrome,
Rove, Bolton, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Leo Strauss, Rice
squat cross-legged on a pile of bones.
That’s some hide. That’s a lot of hide.
“Act well your part, there all the honor falls.”
Psychopaths all. All.
“Put this shit in your pipe and smoke it!”
We are ants
scurrying around under the Bushes.
Under the Koch brothers, Montgomery, Chase,
Penny Pritsker, Goldman Sachs, Forbes,
shadow families, the banks, the others.
Under Lockheed Martin,
DynCorp, Computer Scientist Corporation, AeroVironment,
and the rest. All the rest.
Put us to the test.
My beloved country. Your beloved country.
No excuse it’s what governments do,
that’s trance induced.
It’s motherfucking me, motherfuck.
It’s motherfucking you.
Our own government is our enemy.
“Liar, liar, pants on fire,
hanging from a telephone wire.”
Julian Assange filmed our soldiers laughing
as they machinegun foreign civilians.
Courage and heroics
to reveal the truth. And our government
cannot operate with truth.
Had to extradict, drug, arrest,
trump up charges, put Assange away.
The karma is ours. Whoever pulls the trigger.
“Stop the Lie,” scrawled in black
across red stop-signs. “Stop the Lie.”
You think we won’t remember?
We remember. Our hearts remember.
“We are threads in a single garment (Ad. fr. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)
of destiny, inextricably woven together.”
“This land is your land, this land is my land.” (Woodie Guthrie)
Darkness surrounds and what the hell,
“Buy a goddam big car and drive!” he said. (Robert Creeley)
Smoke, she said. Screw, he said. Fight, she said.
Happy go lucky, singing a song.
How could we go so terribly wrong?
“Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
“I’m not going to cry.
I’ll just say goodbye, paradise” (Lee Marcus, ibid.)
Clive Matson began his writing career among the Beat Generation in New York City in the 1960s, mentored by Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Huncke, John Wieners, and Diane di Prima. He received his MFA from Columbia University in 1989. Clive has published nine volumes of poetry, numerous articles in literary journals, and the writing textbook Let the Crazy Child Write! He participated in the European Beat Studies Network Conference in Paris, 2017, where he gave the premier performance of his newest work, Hello, Paradise. Paradise, Goodbye. He was the recipient of the Pen Oakland “Josephine Miles National Literary Award” in 2004 and the East Bay Express “Best Writing Teacher” award in 2006. In 2012 the City of Berkeley honored Clive with their “Lifetime Achievement Award in Poetry.” More at matsonpoet.com.
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