Most of all I dig the exclamation point
A grieving mother. Quite the target, eh? Quite the old proverbial slam-dunk. Now why would I be so arrogant as to shit all over a poem from a grieving mother? I, who so deeply regard the need for poetry in everyday life, everyone's life. Everyone should write poetry, just like everyone should draw, whether they're good at it or not. Poetry isn't many things but one thing it is's a tool, like a ratchet set is a tool. You may not be a plumber but a leaking tap belongs to you to do with it what you will. That's what I believe.
And really I don't have anything to say to someone who has lost their son in battle. What would you say, except thank you? Thank you for giving your son to a greater purpose, even if it's one I don't agree with, and you know I wouldn't even say that last part. For someone in this position to turn to poetry is a natural thing, it is honourable, it must be respected. That is what it is for.
But thank you isn't what I say to this woman. Here's her unusually chipper little fridge-magnet-ready bromide, designed not to mourn but to ride a death, side-saddle. Here is her uncompromising knicker-twister of a singsong poem, ready to yank the gravity right out of the center of the earth and send it spinning into delirious empty innard-imploding space. Here's this fucking thing. She lost her son, and she is the artisan of her own grief. She has made it less than nothing. Here:
She's Mary Beth Gray - mother of fallen Marine Torrey Gray. She deserves respect. And she deserves rejection.
Semper fi is a bunch of crap. People say it like it means something. It doesn't. It's short for semper fidelis, which means "always faithful". This is, of course, the motto of the U.S. Marine Corps. As a slogan, it is wonderfully adaptive, just like a great soldier. You can, indeed, be always faithful. Anyone can. I faithfully masturbate to internet porn at least twice a week. Semper fi. What matters is what you are faithful to. Principles? Admirable. A cause? Also admirable, to the extent that the cause is a just one. The vigilant protection of a nation? Exceedingly admirable. The enabling of a corrupt and miscreant band of thieves in their quest to defraud a nation of its birthright? Hmm.
Mary Beth Gray, your son died in a war that has meant many things to many people, but very few of those things are even tangentially related to any respect for freedoms enjoyed by the occupied or the occupiers. There have been many positive effects of the war, but most of them are simply the interruption of a series of devastating crimes committed by a totalitarian regime installed by those who were the war's very architects. This interruption was executed with utmost violence, and it is being repaid with more. The resulting instability means that Iraqi cities are overrun with a level of chaos you or I would never understand.
Did you know that the black-market selling of the U.S. Army's discarded drugs is now one of Iraq's most profitable new growth industries? In many cases neither the buyers nor the sellers know exactly what they're transacting in. There are no plans to investigate or curb this industry.
Much effort has been expended to open Iraq's schools, while safe transport there and back (and a reasonably effective number of qualified teachers) remains out of reach. Schools and colleges will be restricted to operating just three days a week in the three weeks before the election due to strict security precautions. During that time, mobile phone comunications will also be disabled. This, for an election that the largest ethnic population in Iraq pretty much feel is designed to exclude them from political discourse. And there'll likely be no way to tell if it does, since the Iraqi Supreme Legation of Elections has threatened to sue any media outlet who violates its rules about how the election is to be covered, without establishing exactly what a violation would be, or look like.
The police, whose supposed mandate is to protect attempts at legitimate industry, are illegally selling gas.
Do you know how long it took them just to return electricity to Baghdad? But it took Bremer no time at all to institute full expropriation rights for foreign corporations. I take back what I said about freedom. But it isn't the Iraqis' freedom which is faithfully defended, and given the way the highly concentrated ownership of American news reporting has been slavishly devoted to building a consensus for the war to the extent of making things up, it would seem it isn't yours either.
To best remember your son, we are obliged to ask why he died. It is the most basic of explorations into who he was. Your pride in your son is a larger thing than I can write about. But when you use it as a bully pulpit for a cheap sloganeering hog call, you're selling out your son's memory to the unscrupulous men and women who sent him to go and die. That makes me angry. Angry enough to write back.
Anyways, I do hope you keep up the poetry, Mary Beth Gray. It truly can be a bridge to solace if you can be open to suggestion.
So here's a suggestion.
And really I don't have anything to say to someone who has lost their son in battle. What would you say, except thank you? Thank you for giving your son to a greater purpose, even if it's one I don't agree with, and you know I wouldn't even say that last part. For someone in this position to turn to poetry is a natural thing, it is honourable, it must be respected. That is what it is for.
But thank you isn't what I say to this woman. Here's her unusually chipper little fridge-magnet-ready bromide, designed not to mourn but to ride a death, side-saddle. Here is her uncompromising knicker-twister of a singsong poem, ready to yank the gravity right out of the center of the earth and send it spinning into delirious empty innard-imploding space. Here's this fucking thing. She lost her son, and she is the artisan of her own grief. She has made it less than nothing. Here:
Freedom Isn't Free It's Priceless!
At Seventeen he stood ready, ready to answer the call.
The call to fight for freedom, freedom for us all....
I sent him off to boot camp, with a smile upon his face.
Innocent and eager, ready to make his place.
He suffered through the crucible, a long hard test I hear.
Was it really possible, A marine did now appear?
At Eighteen he stood ready, ready to answer the call.
The call to fight for freedom, freedom for us all....
To Iraq and back home again, I suffered through it all.
The endless nights of crying, waiting for that 3 a.m. call.
To hear his voice from faraway, through laughter he would say
"No more teardrop letters Mom, I'll make it through each day."
At Nineteen he stood ready, ready to answer the call.
The call to fight for freedom, freedom for us all....
Back to Iraq a second time, he went without hesitation.
This time though only God knew my son’s final destination.
The laughter and the teardrops all blur together now.
I wish I could make sense of this, but I really don't know how.
No happy reunions, no hugs or snuggles from him,
For he is in a better place, and I’ll carry on....for him.
So let us all remember and never forget,
Freedom isn't free and for those of us who've suffered its cost it's....Priceless!
Stand Strong America. Our colors don't run. Never have, Never will. Proud Marine Mom of ....
Lcpl Torrey L. Gray U.S.M.C. KIA April 11th, 2004 Fallujah, Iraq "Once A Marine, Always A Marine"
Semper Fi
She's Mary Beth Gray - mother of fallen Marine Torrey Gray. She deserves respect. And she deserves rejection.
Semper fi is a bunch of crap. People say it like it means something. It doesn't. It's short for semper fidelis, which means "always faithful". This is, of course, the motto of the U.S. Marine Corps. As a slogan, it is wonderfully adaptive, just like a great soldier. You can, indeed, be always faithful. Anyone can. I faithfully masturbate to internet porn at least twice a week. Semper fi. What matters is what you are faithful to. Principles? Admirable. A cause? Also admirable, to the extent that the cause is a just one. The vigilant protection of a nation? Exceedingly admirable. The enabling of a corrupt and miscreant band of thieves in their quest to defraud a nation of its birthright? Hmm.
Mary Beth Gray, your son died in a war that has meant many things to many people, but very few of those things are even tangentially related to any respect for freedoms enjoyed by the occupied or the occupiers. There have been many positive effects of the war, but most of them are simply the interruption of a series of devastating crimes committed by a totalitarian regime installed by those who were the war's very architects. This interruption was executed with utmost violence, and it is being repaid with more. The resulting instability means that Iraqi cities are overrun with a level of chaos you or I would never understand.
Did you know that the black-market selling of the U.S. Army's discarded drugs is now one of Iraq's most profitable new growth industries? In many cases neither the buyers nor the sellers know exactly what they're transacting in. There are no plans to investigate or curb this industry.
Much effort has been expended to open Iraq's schools, while safe transport there and back (and a reasonably effective number of qualified teachers) remains out of reach. Schools and colleges will be restricted to operating just three days a week in the three weeks before the election due to strict security precautions. During that time, mobile phone comunications will also be disabled. This, for an election that the largest ethnic population in Iraq pretty much feel is designed to exclude them from political discourse. And there'll likely be no way to tell if it does, since the Iraqi Supreme Legation of Elections has threatened to sue any media outlet who violates its rules about how the election is to be covered, without establishing exactly what a violation would be, or look like.
The police, whose supposed mandate is to protect attempts at legitimate industry, are illegally selling gas.
Do you know how long it took them just to return electricity to Baghdad? But it took Bremer no time at all to institute full expropriation rights for foreign corporations. I take back what I said about freedom. But it isn't the Iraqis' freedom which is faithfully defended, and given the way the highly concentrated ownership of American news reporting has been slavishly devoted to building a consensus for the war to the extent of making things up, it would seem it isn't yours either.
To best remember your son, we are obliged to ask why he died. It is the most basic of explorations into who he was. Your pride in your son is a larger thing than I can write about. But when you use it as a bully pulpit for a cheap sloganeering hog call, you're selling out your son's memory to the unscrupulous men and women who sent him to go and die. That makes me angry. Angry enough to write back.
Anyways, I do hope you keep up the poetry, Mary Beth Gray. It truly can be a bridge to solace if you can be open to suggestion.
So here's a suggestion.
The Answer
A Rose, in tatters on the garden path,
Cried out to God and murmured 'gainst His Wrath,
Because a sudden wind at twilight's hush
Had snapped her stem alone of all the bush.
And God, Who hears both sun-dried dust and sun,
Had pity, whispering to that luckless one,
"Sister, in that thou sayest We did not well --
What voices heardst thou when thy petals fell?"
And the Rose answered, "In that evil hour
A voice said, `Father, wherefore falls the flower?
For lo, the very gossamers are still.'
And a voice answered, `Son, by Allah's will!'"
Then softly as a rain-mist on the sward,
Came to the Rose the Answer of the Lord:
"Sister, before We smote the Dark in twain,
Ere yet the stars saw one another plain,
Time, Tide, and Space, We bound unto the task
That thou shouldst fall, and such an one should ask."
Whereat the withered flower, all content,
Died as they die whose days are innocent;
While he who questioned why the flower fell
Caught hold of God and saved his soul from Hell.
- Rudyard Kipling
posted by gibletquesterrs at 6:12 PM
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