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Regime Change -- Andrew Motion

(Poem #134)Regime Change
 Advancing down the road from Nineveh
 Death paused a while and said 'Now listen here.

 You see the names of places roundabout?
 They're mine now, and I've turned them inside out.

 Take Eden, further south: At dawn today
 I ordered up my troops to tear away

 Its walls and gates so everyone can see
 That gorgeous fruit which dangles from its tree.

 You want it, don't you? Go and eat it then,
 And lick your lips, and pick the same again.

 Take Tigris and Euphrates; once they ran
 Through childhood-coloured slats of sand and sun.

 Not any more they don't; I've filled them up
 With countless different kinds of human crap.

 Take Babylon, the palace sprouting flowers
 Which sweetened empires in their peaceful hours -

 I've found a different way to scent the air:
 Already it's a by-word for despair.

 Which leaves Baghdad - the star-tipped minarets,
 The marble courts and halls, the mirage-heat.

 These places, and the ancient things you know,
 You won't know soon. I'm working on it now.'
-- Andrew Motion

What the Japanese Perhaps Heard -- Rachel Rose

(Poem #133)What the Japanese Perhaps Heard
 Perhaps they heard we don't understand them
 very well. Perhaps this made them
 
 Pleased. Perhaps they heard we shoot
 Japanese students who ring the wrong
 
 Bell at Hallowe'en. That we shoot
 at the slightest provocation: a low mark
 
 On an exam, a lovers' spat, an excess
 of guilt. Perhaps they wondered
 
 If it was guilt we felt at the sight of that student
 bleeding out among our lawn flamingos,
 
 Or something recognizable to them,
 something like grief. Perhaps
 
 They heard that our culture
 has its roots in desperate immigration
 
 And lone men. Perhaps they observed
 our skill at raising serial killers,
 
 That we value good teeth above
 good minds and have no festivals
 
 To remember the dead. Perhaps they heard
 that our grey lakes are deep enough to swallow cities,
 
 That our landscape is vast wheat and loneliness.
 Perhaps they ask themselves if, when grief
 
 Wraps its wet arms around Montana, we would not prefer
 the community of archipelagos
 
 Upon which persimmons are harvested
 and black fingers of rock uncurl their digits
 
 In the mist. Perhaps their abacus echoes
 the shape that grief takes,
 
 One island
 bleeding into the next,
 
 And for us grief is an endless cornfield,
 silken and ripe with poison.
-- Rachel Rose

What We Heard About the Japanese -- Rachel Rose

(Poem #132)What We Heard About the Japanese
 We heard they would jump from buildings
 at the slightest provocation: low marks

 On an exam, a lovers' spat
 or an excess of shame.

 We heard they were incited by shame,
 not guilt. That they

 Loved all things American.
 Mistrusted anything foreign.

 We heard their men liked to buy
 schoolgirls' underwear

 And their women
 did not experience menopause or other

 Western hysterias. We heard
 they still preferred to breastfeed,

 Carry handkerchiefs, ride bicycles
 and dress their young like Victorian

 Pupils. We heard that theirs
 was a feminine culture. We heard

 That theirs was an example of extreme
 patriarchy. That rape

 Didn't exist on these islands. We heard
 their marriages were arranged, that

 They didn't believe in love. We heard
 they were experts in this art above all others.

 That frequent earthquakes inspired insecurity
 and lack of faith. That they had no sense of irony.

 We heard even faith was an American invention.
 We heard they were just like us under the skin.
-- Rachel Rose

Vergissmeinnicht -- Keith Douglas

(Poem #131)Vergissmeinnicht
 Three weeks gone and the combatants gone
 returning over the nightmare ground
 we found the place again, and found
 the soldier sprawling in the sun.

 The frowning barrel of his gun
 overshadowing. As we came on
 that day, he hit my tank with one
 like the entry of a demon.

 Look. Here in the gunpit spoil
 the dishonoured picture of his girl
 who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinnicht.
 in a copybook gothic script.

 We see him almost with content,
 abased, and seeming to have paid
 and mocked at by his own equipment
 that's hard and good when he's decayed.

 But she would weep to see today
 how on his skin the swart flies move;
 the dust upon the paper eye
 and the burst stomach like a cave.

 For here the lover and killer are mingled
 who had one body and one heart.
 And death who had the soldier singled
 has done the lover mortal hurt.
-- Keith Douglas

The Last Laugh -- Wilfred Owen

(Poem #130)The Last Laugh
 'O Jesus Christ!  I'm hit,' he said; and died.
  Whether he vainly cursed, or prayed indeed,
         The Bullets chirped - 'In vain! vain! vain!'
         Machine-guns chuckled, 'Tut-tut! Tut-tut!'
         And the Big Gun guffawed.
 
  Another sighed, - 'O Mother, Mother! Dad!'
  Then smiled, at nothing, childlike, being dead.
         And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud
         Leisurely gestured, - 'Fool!'
         And the falling splinters tittered.
 
  'My Love!' one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood,
  Till, slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud.
         And the Bayonets' long teeth grinned;
         Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned;
         And the Gas hissed.
-- Wilfred Owen