Resistance: A Found Poem

Posted on June 17, 2004 in Poems

I devised this poem using lines from an article in the June 2004 Harper’s written by a Canadian reporter about those rising up against the U.S. Occupation of Iraq. Lines were extracted and rearranged to create the a “found poem”:

I dyed my hair black,

slipping into a shark tank

a gun put to my head

every 100 feet.

An ambulance with a single bullet hole

killed by tank fire

in a rock-filled wasteland

obscured behind the trees.

Packs of stray dogs

watched the flashes

slowly opening an abyss in the sky.

“When they do this, you take ten of their women.”

Obscured behind the trees

where Adam took the apple from Eve

bored boys with head scarves

sat on cushions eating smoked river carp

A woman swimming in the Tigris

became the talk of the men

driving off in Toyota pickups.

Crowds of men and boys

none too keen on being “liberated”

poured into the region.

The cycle, once started, was impossible to stop.

During the fall

Iron Hammer

had been shot down

on the wrong side of the American Army

which brings too much firepower to every situation.

The intense heat

made of light

was proving difficult.

We were interrupted by the local iman

like a man with a razor in his throat

carrying a video camera

Only an angel

planning to shoot down helicopters

wanted him to feel that it was not his fault.

“Press one if you support the resistance.”