Author's Note: "Thank You, Mr. President" was written in response to Laura Bush's disinviting a group of poets to the White House after they had spoken out against the war in Iraq. 

Thank You, Mister President


for saving us from poetry,
barbaric yawp of needy voices 
crowding narrow pens, unruly urges 
breaking measured lines, the root 
that cracks the sidewalk, the frost 
that heaves the road, 
curl and crash of surf,
breach and splash of dolphins,
deep bassoon of whales sounding the abyss,
ice cracking, wind thrashing,
groan of pine bent beneath the snow,
rumble of caribou, gallop of horse,
steady stroke of goose, lazy flap of crow,
arms swinging, hammers pounding,
rip of saw through seasoned wood,
tongues of lovers, legs of runners,
tiny heartbeats in the womb,
schoolrooms full of children laughing,
cacophony of swollen rapids in the spring.

Thank you, Mister President,
for striking up your band, 
for giving us a martial meter, 
and silencing that mess.
Thanks for beating drums, bugle calls, 
smartly snapping flags, tread of tanks, 
pulse of rotors, throaty growl of F-16s,
sharp report of rifle shot, machine gun’s 
tight staccato roll, thud of howitzer 
and mortar shell, tympani of bombs 
dropped from droning fortresses 
invisible at forty thousand feet.

Thank you for the clear decisive crack 
of bone and spine, 
the rhythmic spurt of blood,
the shredded arteries, 
the severed flesh,
the convulsive tremor 
of someone’s brother’s dying hand,
and that deeper, slower, silent rhythm
of corpses decomposing in the sand.

-originally published in Between What Is and What Is Not