Curfew

The wrong is not in the religion;
The wrong is in us - Saier T.





At dusk, bats fly out by the hundreds.
Water snakes glide in the ponding basins
behind the rubbled palaces. The mosques
call their faithful in, welcoming
the moonlight as prayer.

Today, policemen sunbathed on traffic islands
and children helped their mothers
string clothes to the line, a slight breeze
filling them with heat.

There were no bombs, no panic in the streets.
Sgt. Gutierrez didn't comfort an injured man
who cupped pieces of his friend's brain
in his hands; instead, today
white birds rose from the Tigris.


This is from an terrific little book of poetry called Here, Bullet by Brian Turner, a veteran of the Iraq War. Please - if you want to feel; feel the sandbag blow to the chest of the exploding bomb, feel the heat and the boredom and the fear, feel the tiny cuts left in your heart when everything else has healed...find this book, buy it, read it.

I can't praise this man's work enough. In my opinion he is the Wilfred Owen of Iraq, and his most powerful work can make you weep. And that is tribute enough.