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War
Moonlight
In winter they would board the train to Vienna: Little Max, his parents, and his grandmother. They always traveled at night, and they always left on the same day, just past the middle of December. Little Max knew that it was the same day, year after year, and it confused him when he looked up one year and saw the moon was almost full.
September 2006
And A Time For Peace
Kathy Kelly Puts Herself In Harm’s Way To Oppose War
This war was waged, ostensibly, over weapons of mass destruction. I always say that if you want to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, all you have to do is go to the pediatric wards and see the children whose lives have been ruined by depleted-uranium ammunition left in the soil after the Gulf War. The U.S. has developed, sold, and used more weapons of mass destruction than any other nation in history.
February 2006Selected Poems
Because our sons adore their plastic missile launchers, / cybertronic space bazookas, neutron death-ray guns, / a decade down the pike it won’t prove difficult / to trick them out in combat boots / & camouflage fatigues
— from “Memorial Day”
January 2006God Is Dead
Disguised as a young Dinka woman, God came at dusk to a refugee camp in the North Darfur region of Sudan. He wore a flimsy green cotton dress, battered leather sandals, hoop earrings, and a length of black-and-white beads around his neck. Over his shoulder he carried a cloth sack which held a second dress, a bag of sorghum, and a plastic cup.
December 2005
Sunbeams
November 2005I was half in love with her by the time we sat down. That’s the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they’re not much to look at, or even if they’re sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are.
The Blessing Is Next To The Wound
A Conversation With Hector Aristizábal About Torture And Transformation
For a long time, during the dirty war in Colombia, when my friends were being shot dead all around me, my goal was just to survive. But after I was tortured, my goal changed. It was not just to survive, but to live a meaningful life. Sometimes, in the ordeal, we find the seeds of our identity.
October 2005
Lessons From Basra
I work in the library of a low-income public school. I can see the kids are interested in war. The boys check out all the books about World War I, World War II, weapons, spies, codes, guns, castles, and knights. Boys without fathers are especially interested in combat.
September 2005
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