What Do you Call a Permanent Surge?

When in doubt, just re-deploy.

Don’t bring’em home, don’t shout for joy.

Once they’re in, they’re always in.

Support our troops—until they win.

Forget the homefront hullabaloo.

The weak-kneed Left and all their crew.

For Feith and Perle and Wolfowitz

We’ll carry on our Nazi blitz.

And if they stumble, if they fall,

We’ll move’em back against the wall.

We’ll keep it up till they’ve shot their wad—

For the home team, apple pie and God.

We won’t look back, or re-consider.

(The fruits of winning can be bitter.)

What if we wash the world in gore?

Where that came from—there’s plenty more.

Forget the whining politicians.

Forget the General-tacticians.

It’s root, root, root for the home team now.

(Whatever happened to Colin Powell?)

Forget the college bullshit sessions.

Forget the mass-destruction weapons.

Our SUV’s require oil.

We’ll kill for it on foreign soil.

Their land? Westmoreland! Who gives a “heil”?

Bush or Cheney—equally vile.

It doesn’t matter once we’re in it.

The only matter is how we win it.

Get with the program—just do your job.

If your leg’s blown off, don’t even sob.

If your cock or tits are shattered in vain—

Be a good soldier; don’t complain.

If you’re haunted by children’s faces dead,

We’ve got pills to help you go to bed.

We’ve got therapists to talk you through.

We’ve got medals and ribbons and lots of goo.

Don’t ask questions—it’s too hard to crack.

Trust the officers have got your back.

They know what you want, they know what you need.

It really hurts them when you bleed.

It hurts their chances to advance.

They’re fighting this war with the seat of their pants.

A cake-walk war, where the cake fell in.

An upside-down cake and we can’t win.

But don’t let it out, don’t murmur a word.

Keep a stiff upper lip—and all that turd.

We’ll sew your lips shut if you utter a peep.

Hands off the Prez, hands off the Veep!

What do you call a permanent surge?

What do you call a killing urge?

We’re serial killers—but God’s on our side.

Like it or not, you’re along for the ride.

Your future is mortgaged, we’re about to foreclose.

You’re out on the street, and nobody knows

The trouble you’ve seen, and nobody cares—

A million Chinese are selling you wares.

Put up or shut up. And if you put up,

Don’t be surprised if we shut you up.

You can holler and scream, you can march, you can vote.

It looks good on T.V.—just don’t rock our boat.

You’re a number, you’re an ant. The State has owned you

Since before you were born. You are not you,

Except as we tell you you are you. You

Do not really exist. You are a figment of you.

Poet-playwright-journalist-fictionist-editor-professor, Dr. Gary Corseri has published work in Dissident Voice, The New York Times, Village Voice, CommonDreams and hundreds of other publications and websites worldwide. His dramas have been produced on PBS-Atlanta, and he has performed his work at the Carter Presidential Library. Gary can be reached at gary_corseri@comcast.net. Read other articles by Gary.

6 comments on this article so far ...

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  1. Don Hawkins said on April 10th, 2008 at 5:32am #

    Gary very good. Yesterday on TV a lady at the airport who had been there two day’s said, “why do the common people have to suffer”?
    It looks good on T.V.—just don’t rock our boat.

    You’re a number, you’re an ant. The State has owned you

    Since before you were born. You are not you,

    Except as we tell you you are you. You

    Do not really exist. You are a figment of you.

    Until people can transcend the bullshit I guess they will think they are common not a miracle of the Universe. Let the people go, let the people go Madison avenue, Wall Street, Fox News and on and on and on let the people go.

  2. Don Hawkins said on April 10th, 2008 at 7:04am #

    And if you can’t let them go has it ever occurred to you to raise the bar not only for the common people but yourselves? Has that ever occurred to you and I am not talking about selling houses to the common people.

  3. D.R. Munro said on April 10th, 2008 at 7:07am #

    Wait a minute . . . are you suggesting that my plasma television, iPhone, Mercedes, and my Rolex watch don’t characterize me as a person! Blasphemy!

    So you mean to say . . . that I might be a . . . a person? With a mind? With a personality all my own?

    Nah, you must be a commie.

  4. Don Hawkins said on April 10th, 2008 at 11:37am #

    A commie, no worst than that I watch the History Channel.

  5. hp said on April 10th, 2008 at 12:35pm #

    A permanent surge = life on earth.

  6. Ed Campbell said on April 10th, 2008 at 7:21pm #

    ” Well-written Gary.”

    The surge(ers) are in much need of the ‘purge’, in its many forms;

    i.e. The cold(est) shoulder. A Boycott of them, and theirs.

    Pouring scorn- ad infinitum. Pointing the bone.

    All of course; served cold.