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Contests : War Poetry Contest : Past Winners : 2011 : Lynn McGee
THE U.S. INVADES IRAQ, ON AMERICAN TV
Thumb the plastic bar molded to fit your palm,
turn up the volume, Your nation will soon be free—
George Bush on Iraqi TV's new Western broadcast,
Nahwa Al-Hurieh, Toward Freedom,
CNN's omniscient eye sweeping over palaces'
shiny nude paintings, Fantasy art,
the broadcaster declaims—
channel skid and Jennifer Lopez shimmies bikini fringe
on velvet dunes, a manicured hand fondles gold chains,
white-tailed deer crashes through the gleaming bulge
of suburban bay windows, scene replayed to a laugh track's
crescendo, window healed and leap reversed,
window healed and leap reversed.
Hit "Return" and a star is pinned on a soldier's lapel,
officer punching the young man's chest with rapid,
stern affection, Euphrates on fire, museum scraped clean
of knick knacks carved by hands that invented the wheel,
held cups that hid in hot sand seven thousand years
and are shoved now, in canvas bags, crates cracked
on another continent, bidding in motion.
This is war, Rumsfeld says, and stuff happens,
stuff on prime time shared with eight men holding roses,
kneeling before a woman with chestnut curls
who narrows her choice to Pete, unemployed,
and publicist Mike—back to news and It's Day 17.
The noose is tightening, dagger aimed
at the heart of Saddam's regime.
We are penetrating Basra, sledgehammer
cracking a walnut—
bombers buzz over Samawah, flares fitful
on tiled roofs, tanks belly deep in rubble,
blizzards of paper dumped from jet-lacerated skies,
cartoons flashing goofy Saddam kicked from cartoon Iraq,
35 million Arabs watching their own newscasters
decrying the American Imperialist dream,
the invasion of an Arab state—commentator
raising his hands: Who's next? Syria? Iran?,
viewers bolting doors, jet twisting on the tarmac,
car exploding at checkpoint, Iraqi airport declared
strategic real estate by an American reporter,
just 12 miles from Baghdad's Grand Hotel,
the hotel's vaulted lobby littered
with fallen columns, shards of plate glass
and palm fronds peeled raw—
coverage interrupted by the World Poker Open,
cards flashing on a green velvet table,
war on hold for hilarity, dancers falling off the stage,
grandma losing her teeth in a piņa colada—
then the good news, family in South L.A.
cheering Private First Class Elsa,
enlisted thanks to Executive Order,
Green Card no problem, the teenager's walls
pinned with posters of a college's friendly fortress—
all-expenses-paid—and citizenship bestowed,
in event of death,
Saddam's statue toppled head first,
catacombs rank with urine,
soldiers cautious as cats, flashlights scouring
blood-seasoned walls, audience invited to join them
in Stress Debriefing Circles, canvas
translucent as eggshell, sun-burned youth observing,
You can't solve your problems with an M-16.
That family we mowed down, that lady that survived,
we had to listen to her cry for four or five hours—
Cut to lady that survived.
Cut to jerky footage from a hand-held camera.
Cut to a woman who could have stepped
from any stoop in Brooklyn, tugging at her T-shirt
with its bold Fila logo, chin-length, dark hair
swinging as she sways and wails, her husband's
familiar body zipped into darkness, her son's
small torso shredded where it once was smooth,
no detail private, or out of range.
This poem won an Honorable Mention in the 2011 War Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers. Author Lynn McGee received a $100 award. Copyright is reserved to the author.
About Lynn McGee
Lynn McGee's poems are forthcoming in The American Poetry Review, Hawai'i Review, 2 Bridges Review, and Bluestem, and her work is in current issues of Tilt-a-Whirl, Big City Lit, and The New Guard, where one poem was a finalist and one a semi-finalist in the Knightville Poetry Contest judged by former US Poet Laureate Donald Hall.
Her work has also appeared in The Ontario Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Phoebe, The Sun, West Coast Review, Southern Anthology, Pittsburgh Quarterly, Poetry L.A. and many other journals. Lynn's poetry chapbook, Bonanza, won the Hudson Valley Writers Center/Slapering Hol Press manuscript contest, and her short stories have appeared in the Northwest Review and Berkeley Fiction Review. A winner of the In Our Own Write contest at The GLBT Center, NYC, where she also won a Heart of the Center Award for starting a GED class for youth, Lynn received a MacDowell fellowship, won the Judith's Room Emerging Writers contest, and earned an MFA at Columbia University. She worked in literacy for many years and is now the newswriter for a large urban college.
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