Written in the Run-Up to America’s Horrific Decision to Invade Iraq (2002-2003).
by Viggo Mortensen
Accept and forget difference or desire that separates and leaves
us longing or repelled. Why briefly return to play in broken places,
to mock the ground, to collect infant shards, coins, fossils,
or the familiar empty canisters and casings that glint
from poisoned roots in the blackened dust?
We make bad ghosts, and are last to know or believe we too will fade,
just as our acrid smoke and those strange flakes of skin
and strands of hair will, into largely undocumented extinction.
Lie down, lie down; sleep is the best thing for being awake.
Do as we’ve always been told and done,
no backward glances or second thoughts,
leaving sad markers buried in the sand. Sleep now,
dream of children with their heads still on,
of grandmothers unburdening clotheslines at twilight,
of full kettles slow-ticking over twig embers.
Ignore boneless, nameless victims that venture out
on bitter gravel to claim remains while we rest.
Pay at the window for re-heated, prejudiced incantations.
Take them home and enjoy with wide-screen, half-digested,
replayed previews of solemn national celebration. Then sleep,
by all means; we’ll need all the energy we can muster
for compiling this generation’s abridged anthology
of official war stories, highlights of heedless slaughter,
to burnish our long and proud imperial tradition. At some point,
by virtue of accidentally seeing and listening,
we may find ourselves participating in our own rendering.
Few of our prey will be left alive enough to water the sun with their modest,
time-rubbed repetitions, to rephrase their particular, unifying laws.
Our version of events has already made its money back
in foreign distribution and pre-sales; all victory deadlines must be met.
It can get so quiet, with or without the dead watching
our constant deployments. From our tilted promontory we may see one last woman
scuffle away across cracked parchment of dry wash beneath us,
muttering to herself—or is she singing at us?
—as she rounds the sheared granite face and disappears
into a grove of spindly, trembling tamarisk shadows lining the main road.
We’ll soon hear little other than our breathing, as shale cools
and bats rise to feed, taking over from sated swallows.
Night anywhere is home, darkness a cue for turning inward,
quiet an invitation to review our expensive successes
before morning extraction from the twin rivers of our common cradle.
GUESTS
Acclaimed Actor Viggo Mortensen on the Pope, Poetry and Art in Politics
Actor, poet, photographer and book publisher Viggo Mortensen, star of the “Lord of the Rings” franchise, reads his poem “Back to Babylon” from his newly reissued book, “Twilight of Empire: Responses to Occupation.” Mortensen also shares his thoughts on the progressive bent of Pope Francis and speaking out about injustice while leading a creative life.
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