STICKING TO POETRY
“Why can’t these so-called poets just stick to writing poetry
and leave politics alone?”
– Michael Savage, radio talk show host (with reference to Al Young)
In the throes of criminal conspiracy,
in this dire hour, plum blossoms
push me back into pink chambers:
women, interrogators. Some strip
in front of Muslim men, then stand above
them to let their menstrual blood drip
onto captives’ drained faces. True or false?
No waltz of flowers, no gum-tree flower
trumps this sick misuse of flora and genus.
Torture of the landscape remains as American
as Billie Holiday’s strange fruit of lynch mob
justice. Dispensed with a callused hand,
with pride, such justice melts the polar ice
and caps the land with life-canceling poisons.
What on earth goes on here, Marvin Gaye?
Al Young
Copyright © 2008 by Al Young
