Mumbai; Baghdad; Gaza

Moscow, eh, Bush? With your old pal Putin, the one whose soul you saw in his beautiful steel blue eyes. Nice work. I hope it's a bit cooler for you there in Russia than it is for us here in California. The heat wave seems unending in this part of the world. Global warming, maybe. I hear you're ready to concede that there's a "debate" about the issue. As you told an interviewer in People magazine who asked if you thought Al Gore was right on global warming:

I think we have a problem on global warming. I think there is a debate about whether it's caused by mankind or whether it's caused naturally, but it's a worthy debate. It's a debate, actually, that I'm in the process of solving by advancing new technologies, burning coal cleanly in electric plants, or promoting hydrogen-powered automobiles, or advancing ethanol as an alternative to gasoline.

Whew! Glad to hear you're on top of the problem, Bush. You had me worried there for a while.

Anyway, listen, I started out to write something different today. A kind of sequel to yesterday's poem. Here it is:

Mumbai; Baghdad; Gaza

The moods shift. Yesterday
it was anger, Bush; today
it's sorrow. In Mumbai
one hundred and eighty-three
people dead, at last count,
victims of intolerance, hatred
the rage of humans against humans.
In Baghdad, another sixty,
yesterday, dead, victims
of intolerance, hatred, the rage
of humans against humans. Gaza:
seven more humans die this morning,
victims of mutual intolerance, implacable
mutual hatred, the insatiable rage
of humans against humans. We, Bush,
are a murderous species. We kill
the innocent--those who pay
for the intolerance, the hatred,
and the rage. We hate, we rage,
we kill those who hate and rage,
along with the innocent: people
on trains on the way to work,
people with groceries in bags,
reading their newspapers, reading
their paperback books. We kill them.
People dozing off with the rattle
of the train, other people making
bombs in their basement, to kill
other people. We kill them. We kill
our children, Bush. We kill small
babies in their mothers' arms, men
with machine guns, and men
without machine guns. We kill
men in business suits, women
in saris, people in t-shirts, shorts,
people in uniform and people
out of uniform. We kill doctors
and nurses and soldiers and seamen.
We kill laborers and lawyers and teachers
and schoolchidren. We kill office workers
and computer programers and janitors
and thieves. We kill killers.

So here it is this morning,
Bush: here it is, it's
sorrow. Grief. Despair.
Who will save us from each other,
Bush? Will Jesus? Will
Mohammed? Whose God will come
to save us from ourselves?