Two Dead Men

I've been making a list of poems to write, including 10 or 12 political ones. I saw an Eisenhower quote the other day, and all of a sudden, this poem sprang out almost entire - it tied into one of my ideas. Even cooler, I'm definitely giving this to my kids next week, along with the poem about Taylor Ault, to have them try their hand at "found poetry" after AIMS.

One fun thing about this one - when I perform it, I get to wave two fingers around constantly, to contrast peace signs and victory signs - and do a little Nixon at the end.


two dead men
a drug-addicted comedian
a Republican president
two dead men
one single observation
shrapnel
doesn’t taste very good
and it’s a little lacking
in the essential vitamins and minerals
a dead comedian
had a dream
a dead British singer
would have liked
take all the money we spend
on weapons and defense
each year
and instead
spend it
feeding, clothing, and educating
the poor of the world
which it would
many times over
not one human being excluded
and we can explore space
together
both inner and outer
forever
in peace
dreamer
dreaming like a guy
with more drugs
than your average jam band
but he’s not the only one
two dead men
a drug-addicted comedian
a Republican president
can both recognize
that we do not eat metal
shrapnel doesn’t taste very good
but it can cure world hunger
one closed mouth at a time
dead men tell no tales
nor need their daily bread
ask Pol Pot
how to solve a hunger problem
ask Saddam Hussein
how to solve a hunger problem
ask Idi Amin Slobodan Milosevic
ask the Armenian sultans before World War I
ask the Tutsi
if the machetes
quenched the hunger in their belly
dead men tell no tales
but they’ve got some answers
to our problems
if we’re going to take food
from the mouths of babes
we should be kind enough
to feed them the steel
we paid for instead
two dead men
a drug-addicted comedian
but also
a Republican president
every gun that is made
every warship launched
every rocked fired
signifies in the final sense
a theft
from those who hunger
and are not fed
from those who are cold
and are not clothed
you know
what he’s talking about
because you live
at the scene of the crime
down at home
here in Oceania
the man in Tennessee
who lay dead in the parking lot
outside the emergency room
where they dragged him
and left him
the boy in New York
dead in his mother’s arms
because the cavity
spread its brown gangrene
from his jaw
to his gray matter
one was dragged out to die
and the other never even made it
to the doctor
because they didn’t have insurance
it wasn’t murder
because they didn’t have insurance
you know the scene of the crime
here in Oceania
you see it in the movies
the classrooms that you hear about
the wasteland
with graffitied desks and glazed eyes
we can’t pay for new books chairs or pencils
the 2010 federal budget
allotted half a hundred billion for education
and two-thirds of a trillion
for those guns warships and missiles
the toilet paper in the bathrooms
ran out last week
I heard they’re using it
to wipe clean the streets
around the Green Zone
there’s always someone standing
at the corner of the interstate
with an empty belly and an open hand
the homeless shelters are closing
the lights are flickering
at the unemployment office
and the subsidies to pay the gas bill
in public housing complexes
for single working mothers
we’re using the fuel
to burn desert sands
into bloody fused glass
this is Oceania
this is the price
of victory
we could pay for our streets
and our Michigan bridges
to pave our highways clean
into renewed inner cities
but we’re paying to pour
carpet-bomber concrete
in Afghani mountains
ask the Ninth Ward
if they wanted to pay
for that victory
with the concrete from their levees

and we didn’t even need to
we could do so much at home
we could do so much everywhere
if we stopped buying victory
by maintaining obsolete weapons
and for any
homophobic redneck 2nd Amendment
flag-waving pencil-dicked motherfuckers
who need me to elaborate
on the definition of obsolete
it means do not use this gun
unless you like getting skullfucked
we could junk those guns
we could junk those warships
we could junk those missiles
we could pay for victory
with a little less theft
with a little less obsolete
but we live in Oceania
and we didn’t listen to Orwell
a comedian and a President
told us about theft and love
about the cost of our bombs
about the path to victory
but we didn’t listen to Orwell
he already knew we’d fight
with Eurasia against Eastasia
and pay the mountain men
with the funds
for free school lunches
but one September salvo
changed all that
we were always at war
nothing has changed
check your flags
we should’ve listened to Orwell
and if nothing’s ever changed
maybe we’re paying for nothing
to never come
we live in Oceania
and two dead men
are telling us the price
of a victory that may never come
not through fighting
I’d wave my peace signs
because I’m a dreamer
and I’m not the only one
but that’s not the price of victory

if we pay for the guns
instead of food and shelter
then that’s called opportunity cost
the something else
we could’ve paid for
now those two dead men
are not economists
so maybe
they could just say it plain
they could tell us that
our broken schools
and drowned levees
the children lost
to gang violence
the newborn and elderly
aching for their pain medication
they are the price of victory
so when another dead man
sends me one single thought
one sole idea
written in red
on every beachhead
from Australia to Tokyo
that there is no substitute for victory
there is not a lot
I can say to that
nothing that two dead men
have to say
about stealing from the hungry
and exploring together
no peace sign I can wave
beats the simple claim
that
there is no substitute for victory