A poem by Thomas Thornburg from Ancient Letters

This is the poem of I will kill you
The poem of I will cut your throat
The poem of listen, do not fuck around
The poem of this is no joke
The poem of what I can do is shoot you
off at your knees, your elbows, cripple
you
Listen: are you already crippled?
Listen: are you no match?
Listen: are you a child, a woman, an old man smiling
wanly?
Listen: little one, I will brick your head into red mush
Listen: fair one it will be a rare thing when you smile
Listen: old man I will set your beard on fire with my
ZIPPO
Listen: I will shake your house down like the Earthshaker
(this is called allusion)
Put this in your book, Gook (this is called rhyme, I
went to school)

Editor’s note: In the current climate of warrior worship and the avowal of Barack Obama to not be swept up in the psycho-dramas of the Boomer generation, it may have been wise to have withheld this very savage poem, which speaks much truth about the methods and purpose of modern warfare, which can only be described as permanent, state-sponsored terrorism. Remember that the very first action in our current war on Iraq was officially titled by our very own military as “Shock and Awe,” as succinct and clear a statement of the purpose of terrorism as we have seen.

Thornburg’s poem reminds us that war is a savage business and that we, as war makers, must become savages ourselves in order to prosecute it. As much as we should like to smooth over that discomfiting truth, it will not go away. Regarding the photograph, it is a companion to a more famous shot that shows only the three children fleeing their napalmed village and four soldiers seeming to follow them. This photograph gives a little more context, showing part of the team of photographers and reporters who witnessed the attack and, rather than helping these young victims, merely continue with the shoot.

As a generation, this photo reveals much about who the Boomers and their parents and mentors, the so-called Greatest Generation, really are.