<< hix << interview << cover << home
poems from God Bless
Artwork: Bush/Osama Lipstick and eyebrow pencil on paper by
Debra Di Blasi
'George W. Bush' © 2007 Debra Di Blasi
'Osama Bin Laden' © 2007 Debra Di Blasi
click to enlarge

   

September 2001

Our country will…not be cowed by terrorists,
by people who don’t share the same values we share.
Those responsible for these cowardly acts
hate our values; they hate what America stands for.
We can’t let terrorism dictate our course of action.
We’re a nation that has fabulous values:
as a nation of good folks, we’re going to hunt them down,
and we’re going to find them, and…bring them to justice.
Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.
They’re flat evil. They have no justification.
There is universal support for what we intend.
Americans are asking: What is expected of us?
I ask you to live your lives, and hug your children.
Go back to work. Get down to Disney World.

 

Interleaf

Are human beings free only in the U.S.?
Can it alone retaliate against injustice?
As you violate our security, so we violate yours.

Manhattan was not the first atrocity.
Lebanon 1982: third fleet, Israelis.
We have been fighting you because we are free.

Deceiving yourself about the real reasons
for one disaster only invites a second.
Does a crocodile understand anything other than weapons?

Again and again he claims to know our reason,
and tells you we attacked because we hate freedom.
Perhaps he can tell us why we did not attack Sweden.

 

October 2002 >>
   
divider

H. L. Hix
Writer’s Statement

These poems come from a project entitled God Bless, which will be published later this year by Etruscan Press. All passages in the Bush poems were spoken by Bush during the month identified in the poem’s title, and all are quoted verbatim, as they appear on the official White House web site, www.whitehouse.gov. The “interleaves” imitate arguments from the public statements of Osama bin Laden. Only the italicized passages are direct quotations from bin Laden. My source for bin Laden’s discourses was Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden, ed. Bruce Lawrence.

| top |
 
Nut-Head Productions
Please report any problems with this site to  the Webmaestress
last update: July 2, 2007