God,
tell me,
which is the sadder:

Bonds;
Steroids;
(Blasting three hundred extra homers);
Conviction/sentencing;

Or,

Bush + Condi’s puppylike unworldliness and gullibility;
Colin Powell power-dumping
a generation’s cred at the U.N.,
telling Tenet-Cheney’s Grimm’s tale, Recipe of the Yellow Cake Mushroom Cloud;
Four-thousand-five-hundred Americans bodybagged;
(Saddam murdered);
Abundantly showcasing the limit of American power to all enemies;
A hundred-fifty-thousand Iraqis destroyed;
Nutcase Iran the default major victor (how easy for them!)?

Yet
I, too,
am complicit;

Copyediting, story-buffing Tenet’s CIA report of mushrooming yellowcake;
I stood in the VP’s office,
as he sat back
reading the narrative,
eyeglasses perched cockeyed on his scalp,
face twistily smiling at the papers,
eyes beaming, twinkling,
an evil Christmas child who gets exactly the absurd gift of his tantrums –
a million tons of explosives, the most-advanced machinery of war –

What could I have done?
I too was swept up like Dorothy’s house,
in the whirlwind of fear,
letting my gut douse my brain in adrenaline and Mr. Jack Daniel’s w/Coke, ice, and lime.

Someone had to pay for 9/11, didn’t they?
No, really, no, they didn’t, no:
WWGD?
(What Would Gandhi Do?)
Yes,
I was behind the Green Line,
cocooned in Camp Victory,
collating legal papers,
fetching ’merican Dasanis for my boss;
We were an occupying force, you see,
liberating a plethora of seething,
God-on-my-side
civil-war factions.

In Iraq, drunk on Jack + Coke,
looking up at the stars,
remembering Barry Bonds homerun trajectories:
– Number 600, a high, twisting shot to Section 140;
– A laser shot rising, gleefully-accepted into down-coated Arcade bodies;
– A blast over the stands, striking the pavement like God’s passed kidney stone, bounding high, splashing into the kayaks;
– The ’02 cannon burst in Anaheim that had the enemy laughing in awe;

Watching bulky Bonds round the bases,
we went wild,
knowing, knowing, knowing, knowing, knowing,
the constant greatness of a 40-something man,
was artificial; we didn’t want to know.

These two sagas,
built on B.S.,
are over;
The decade finally collapses,
like an infected, hollowed tree;

Yes, we’ll see the culprits we cheered for,
at old timers’ days and on talk shows,
but, we can boo them too,
while encouraging better leaders,
and fans;

The new year is fresh;
ignoring grammar, I declare:
Bring ’Em On!

Please note: I did not ever serve in the CIA as a copywriter, or in any capacity, nor did I ever meet Dick Cheney; I did, though, meet Barry Bonds.