New Poetry By Jon Andersen

Note:
"The ghazal (roughly pronounced "guzzle") is an ancient Persian form, consisting of an indertminate number of couplets, which end in the repetition of the word used at the end of the first two lines. Often the poet "signs" the ghazal with some sort of self reference towards the end."

Profit Guzzle
By JON ANDERSEN

Gaza surgeons report radioactive burns, rotting amputations. Death, altered genomes, superheated micro-shrapnel bursts hide in profit

and loss behind new Israeli weapons. Climatologists sum up computer models: "We're screwed without massive change now" but economists demand profits.

Satire dies first. Teachers and counselors say they've never seen so many kids cutting or killing themselves, each other, falling into psychosis. While profiteers

booze-cruise on Gulfstream 550s streaking above broken 'hoods, Miss G, blindas a seer, eats Ramen noodles, dog food, buys cheap meds. Blue Cross profits

kick ass. Sherry nurses her baby knowing that rocket fuel contaminates every woman's breast milk, but hell, formula's even worse. Raytheon profits

shoot up and up. FBI agents show up at the Whitney looking for the mad genius obsessively sketching dead-right webs of corporate influence, profits.

Our constitution croaks and the artist's a suicide. Billions for future Homeland prison camps, billions now for feeding grub to cannon fodder in Iraq: profits

for Haliburton are nothing to sneer at. Khartoum shuts down cell phone access to villagers before Janja weed AK-47 massacres. Telecoms still profit:

God love 'em. The Mexican government rapes and tortures - Jon wants money and real guns for poor people rising up in Oaxaca. Fox News, Wal-Mart profits

are abstract expressions of blood in the streets, mothers keening. So few hours per life! Now: can we finally name our enemy? Can we name our prophets?

Jon Andersen is the author of Stomp and Sing (Curbstone 2005), a book of image-studded lyrics of work, love, family, and class struggle. His poems have appeared in numerous publications, including The Cafe Review, Connecticut Review, The Progressive, and Rattle. He teaches, along with his wife and fellow writer Denise Abercrombie, at E.O. Smith High School in Storrs. Andersen will be a keynote speaker for the IMPAC-Connecticut State University Young Writers 10th annual dinner June 1 at the Litchfield Inn.