Questions were asked, something didn’t fit
The Phoenix Memo, cover-up, and lies
Video, edited, could it be it was our Government?
Afghanistan, Philippines, Somalia, Trans-Sahara
All of them our target.
Two-Thousand Nine-Hundred Seventy-Seven.

Geography lesson, Basra, Kabul, Khandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif
Places you never knew, dusty towns in the middle of somewhere
Hearts and Minds, Minds and Hearts
Taliban on the run, Al Queda disrupted
Homes and lives shattered. Firefighters get cancer.
Fourteen Thousand to Thirty Four Thousand… and counting

Axis of Evil, got a man, got a plan, gotta bomb Iraq
Weapons of Mass Destruction, Instruments of Mass Deception
Jessica Lynch, a little whitewash
Insurgents, IEDs,
Abu Gharib, White Phosphorous, Gang-Rape, Torture, and Murder
Ninty-Eight Thousand to One-Million Thirty-Three Thousand… and counting

Two-Thousand Nine-Hundred Seventy Seven deaths 10 years ago,
brought an estimated One-Million Sixty-Seven Thousand civilian casualties.
2,977 to 1,067,000. 358.45 people for every 1.
What a legacy, what a response, what a waste of human life.
Brothers, Sisters, Daughters, Sons, Moms and Dads.
Their only crime? Wrong place, wrong time.

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, 179 eyes for one eye…
Can’t explain it, can’t defend it. No matter which way you bend it.
Bin Laden’s dead, that’s a fact. I can’t jump for joy, a pain intact.
Patriots Day? No thank you.
Today I mourn the dead. All 1,069,977 and counting.

Today I ask for forgiveness for all the atrocities in my name.
Today I ask for forgiveness from our future, for our past.
As we failed to show
The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
The goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all;

No, today will never be Patriots Day.
The flag will not fly this day.
This day has not earned Pride, only Sorrow.
It will be Remembrance Day.
It will be Forgiveness Day.
It will be the day in September when our world changed again, and not for the better.

Until we decide what legacy we want,
Until we decide that this day serves neither pride nor sorrow,
But action.
Action against violence, action against war, action against destruction.
We decide now if we really believe:
“War, good god y’all, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing!”

DOWNLOAD HERE (ZIP FILE)

@echo off

echo.

color 0A

echo *Batch*, A Batchfile interactive Poem by B.L. McGarr

echo ©2011 B.L. McGarr, All Rights Reserved (Includes Coding and Poem)

echo.

echo Alive with the rays of the sun

echo Alive with beams of the moon

echo I am here

echo Where are you?

echo.

echo I walk this path alone

echo I go from work to home

echo I am here

echo Where are you?

echo.

pause

echo running script and command

echo running like mad

echo press any key to continue…

echo so that’s what I’ve done

echo.

echo routine is routine is routine

echo and each time I think I’ve broken it

echo I find I’ve fallend behind again

echo and I find I’m alone again

echo.

echo Surrounded by a million, billion people

echo all going about their business, and yet, I am a singularity

echo I am here

echo where are you?

echo.

echo Melancholy mind plays tricks

echo I am my own devil

echo Saboteur, delinquent

echo Sets it up, and destroy

echo.

echo human emotions, human fear

echo human sadness, human joy

echo we all bear

echo we all survive

echo.

pause

color 0C

echo I am here

echo where are you?

echo let’s find ourselves

echo once again

pauses

tart http://goo.gl/maps/tAsk

pause

echo Thanks for reading. If you’d like to view this as code, open this in Notepad or a similar basic text program.

pause

skin

set in motion a quickening

pace my heart race

looking in

not out, begin

speaking and lecturing

to the self within

my folly is the melancholy

romance or love or lust

terminology, parts of a whole

feeling deep resonating

anxiety, anxiety, forgive me

it’s not my fault, i promise i beg

crazy foolish awkward

with two left feet

it will pass, it will subside

with each caress of a hand

silk of a kiss

warmth of an embrace

its hard to explain

in words understood

how high i fly while being

so afraid

put on kid gloves

be gentile with my soul

my heart

my head

anxiety, anxiety

my folly is melancholy

the chaos of nerves

and emotions

it will subside

that i do know

a level of comfort

must be first known

An arsonist runs ramped though thought and reason and research
and no matter how many times I reaffirm myself that
Collegiate standards mean something, that intelligence means something
the arsonist finds his target and sets it on fire, billowing a way in smoke

And so I lay in the early morning sunbeams
streaming from a burning ball of incandescent gas, a thermonuclear furnace
feeling it’s warm rays of radiation caress my skin like a long lost lover
who just happens to be a billion miles away

The motes of dust dance their silent tango above my head as I drift in and out
of sleep on a lazy Saturday morning
the arsonist gone for the moment, allowing for the repairs and rebuilding to begin in earnest
and by now you’re asking yourself “So what combination of drugs is HE on?”

And it was in this lazy sleep I was visited by a unique visitor. He was my son, my daughter, my niece, my nephew, my neighbors kid, my student, and the little kid in the “Save the world” commercials that bring on guilt for eating popcorn while watching a late night TV show.

His-her eyes stared deep into my soul and without a word I knew what he-she was saying.
The question burned deep with the intensity of a thousand suns and I knew,
there was no dodging this question
there was no giving it the Sarah Palin treatment

No, the inquisitor before me implored me of a simple question, like the Raven of Poe repeating ad nausium, ad ravenum: “why?”

It’s a loaded question packed with the force of the entire world’s arsenal from the smallest caliber bullets to the largest atomic weapons. Enough force in that one simple word followed by a simple question mark, to destroy worlds.
I am the destroyer of worlds, and I am called “Why?”, or “¿Que?” in Spanish.

And the stoic in me was destroyed. There was no stiff upper lip. There was no Bill Pullman in Independence Day giving a rousing speech while space octopi leveled destruction. There was no Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption being strong while others collapsed into lunacy.
There was only “Sorry.”

There was only a deep, meaningful, “sorry.”

It doesn’t matter the question. It doesn’t matter if they asked why the fish had two heads, or why they couldn’t drink the milk. It doesn’t matter why they asked about old Fukushima, now abandoned and forgotten amidst a specter that used to only hang in Pripyat.

It doesn’t matter if they asked why they have to work at such a young age, in the mines, in the factories, in the camps. It doesn’t matter if the question is where did liberty go, and when was she coming back. It wouldn’t matter if the asked why the oceans weren’t blue and clear, why the sky wasn’t  blue and clear, and why the snow wasn’t white and pure. It wouldn’t matter if they asked what was a kitty cat.

It doesn’t matter if they asked any number of questions because the answer would simply be: sorry.

For the future they visit me from is one that I failed to protect for them. I failed to defend the liberty I loved. I failed to keep the earth
wild, free, and clean. I failed to keep the skies blue and clear, and the snows light and powdery. I failed to keep cats a treasured species, domestic and wild. I failed to fly with the eagle when he asked me to take wing, and I failed to swim with the dolphin when she asked me to dive.
I failed to keep Pripyat, Pripyat, and Fukushima, Fukushima, and allowed the two to become all to similar. I allowed the milk to become too irradiated to drink, and I allowed the fish to mutate into unrecognizable abominations.

I was too busy living my life is the only justification one could muster.

Sorry, is all that could be said.

Because no matter what, there are truths that cannot be denied:
pointing fingers at others, leaves three pointing back at you
and
the only thing needed for evil to triumph, is for a good man to do nothing

And because society asked for silence, resilience, calm, I did nothing, and the evils we had been warned about, triumphed.

And then I realized, she-he may have been a figment of my imagination, the world was all too real, and I felt helpless and paralyzed.

I know what you’re thinking
I know what you’re stewing
But know this in your heart
It isn’t the CEO who does the brewing
It takes someone who knows the art

The hands that picked the cotton
with sores bruised and rotten
hadn’t a pond of coin to their name
but they survived just the same

The hands that built the rail
All worked through hell
And linked a nation coast to coast
Never got to raise a glass in toast

Now they try, once again
to return us to our days as slaves
I’ll be a Wobblie, A fucking Pinko Commie
If it means a living wage

They made their profits
And made endorsements
Citizens United paved the way
For corporations to decide the American Way

I don’t want no Adrian of Nicomedia
patron saint of arms dealers and the plague
Let the sun rise on Isidore of Seville
And let Saint Amandus provide the drink

Watch our spirits fly, for we are one
And we’re united here today
Your days are numbered, you may have the money
But there are more of us than of you any day

I Took Your Name,
I Remember California,
I Wanted to be Wrong,
I walked with a Zombie

Hope will lead a Horse to Water
take a High Speed Train Half A World Away
Leaving New York to Houston
Because It’s a Free World Baby

It’s the End of The World As We Know It,
but I’m Not Over You
I Don’t Sleep, I Dream… I Believe
listen to the Voice of Harold

I Walk Unafraid of the Wake-Up Bomb
West of The Fields, Burning Down, Burning Hell, a White Tornado
Catapult a Chance, a Carnival of Sorts
but I Can’t Get There from Here

I’m Crazy with Circus Envy, Fascinating
I Find The River, Cuyahoga
this Daysleeper can only go Nightswimming
with a Camera and a Beachball

Jump on the Bandwagon, and I’ll Bang and Blame
the Boy in the Well, Chorus and the Ring
Bittersweet Me will send my Country Feedback
All The Way To Reno

Beat a Drum, my crush with eyeliner
Departure from this Dark Globe and Disappear
Diminished Disturbance at the Heron House
Draggin’ the Line to Ignoreland

I’m the King of Birds, I’m the King of Comedy
I’m losing my religion, just a touch
this Imitation of Life

I’m laughing, let me in
Make it all ok with a man-sized wreath
Perfect Circle this Pilgrimage Photograph
Second Guessing a Sad professor with Seven Chinese Brothers

She just wants to be shiny happy people
romance, permanent vacation, pale blue eyes
a near wild heaven, talk about the passion,
the one I love, so fast, so numb

Stand with a Sponge, Star Me Kitten, Star 69
Superman was Supernatural Superserious
Staring down the barrel of the middle distance
listen about how the west was won and where it got us

Sitting still, in so. central rain, sing for the submarine
Stumble is the ascent of man, we walk with wanderlust
What if we give it away?
Why not smile?

Until the day is done,
there are toys in the attic tired of singing trouble these days
the wrong child, the sidewinder sleeps tonight
try not to breathe, as it turns you inside out

Sweetness follows the outsiders shaking through
parakeet on the fly, me in honey
with maps and legends, find magnetic north
I’ve been high, but I’ll take the rain

I am a hollow man with good advices
I can sing the finest work song, fretless, gardening at night
Exhuming McCarthy, because Monty got a raw deal
It was the final straw

You are the everything
you’re in the air
where I belong
at my most beautiful.

old man winter fast approaches
his cabin in the south
where he will stay until
the minions of spring kick him out

my spirit shivers and grows tired
the brain and heart fighting
overthinking
overtaking

slow, calm, proceed
if it is, it is, and if it is not, it is not
overthinking, overreading
is not the scientific method