The Writer Fighter
Repost This ArticleHave you become
a lance corporal,
wing commander,
lieutenant, private,
sergeant, major general?
Or are you a writer
transporting yourself
into trenches to wield
a saber against a vague
menace, bespectacled,
sitting at a computer,
trying to finish
his latest report
on the war
without witnesses
that went wrong
somehow because
the witnesses
and warriors
snapped photos
on cell phones
and sent them
to scribes
composing
on computers
eternal odes
to mere privates
in trenches,
launching projectiles
from bazookas,
following orders,
not responsible
for blood baths
beyond gun sites,
in no man’s land,
no fire zones?
Some witnesses have already spoken. Still others are yet to speak “positively”.
Indran Amirthanayagam has written an excellent poem here which fully outlines the horrors perpetrated by the government of the United States of America for which he works. Because of this he is in the best possible position to expose the machinations and excesses of the American war machine which that empire forces on the unwilling everywhere in the world today.