Thursday, September 04, 2008

Apology

"I ain't a communist necessarily, but I have been in the red all my life."
--Woody Guthrie


I’m sorry.
On behalf of the world
I apologize.

I don’t blame the sweat-soaked man
who pulled the black market trigger.
His scar was constant danger,
bloated by a leaden bulge
and an itch
to be the man society demands,
a drive-by saviour.

I don't blame you.
You wanted a mother to shield you
from the ones who have it all
and the others like you
who have nothing,
your competition
for the trickle-down leftovers.

I don’t blame your mother,
who escaped on her own,
left you alone.
It's hard to blame a Third-World woman.
Blame is a masculine fist,
another uninvited seed.
What choice did your mother have?
No more than you.

Where can I, a faraway foreigner
place my scuffed steel-toes?
Whose ass do I kick here?
Where shall I stand for you
with all this money?
It’s available now;
you are already fallen.

I’m sorry
on behalf of my world.
We feared your lyrical science,
stole your books and bricks,
gave you machetes and guns and glue,
and a place in the ground.
The only shield left for you
is the mother of us all.



ps. I made the news! This time not as a journalist but as a subject, in the Books section, for my contest win. Click here to read it.

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Comments:
Excellent news about your book! Sorry I've been running around this summer and missed this development. Wonderful for you, best of luck with publication.
 
CONGRATS! Keep us posted on the latest developments.

As for your post, I certainly can relate to this line: "Blame is a masculine fist"
 
powerful poem, benji ..
and once again ..
on being a subject .. :)
 
congrats! (oops, i forgot to add that)..
addled brain over here..
 
I'm dimwitted Benji, I get the references (some of them anyway)and I see that this post is a poem from awhile back but I don't quite understand who or what the narrator is apologizing for. General society? Bushes and preceding American governments? Expound on your thinking of the time please.
 
Yeah! Woo hoo!
 
apology accepted.....lol







COngrats man, take care
 
Gee.

Won the contest amd made the Chronicle.

I've been eating honourable mentions for a long time.

Have yet to score a first. Well, maybe with my first story in something called The Fifth Page.
But that was in l966 !

Congrats.
 
Dude, u didnt make the news, you are the news...

Excellent work, well done & congrats!
 
Congratulations Ben!!

I'm not a poet, but I liked the flow.

My husband, who is a national renowned poet, would not have taken this one for his mag though. He hates, with a vengeance, question marks in a poem.

lol
 
Congrats again!
And this is a very interesting poem, definitely filled with thought provoking lines.
 
That's good that you're getting some press. We'll be looking for more and more of you.
 
my god man! you're just all over the place now!! :) its up up up from here. ride that wave as if it were your last darlin.

i only have good wishes for you and your life and career. you of all writers i know deserve it.
 
Boo. That link doesn't seem to like my Mac browser.
Still, congratulations on the much deserved attention, as well as another moving poem.
 
Well done with the book being the subject this time. I heard somewhere recently that sorry is the most overused word in the English language. First three lines say it all,succinctly.
 
Lynn: no worries, been the same with me, not much time for blogging lately with lots on the go. Thanks for the good tidings.

JR: thank you muchly. yeah, that was a harsh line, but that's often reality isn't it?

Foam: Thanks so much. It's been fun to be a subject.

TWM: it's actually quite specific, which is why I wouldn't expect anyone to know the exact story, but hopefully identify with the images/sentiments. Anyway it's an apology to a boy my wife worked with in Nicaragua. He was a street kid. Tried to rob a bus and was shot dead, in the back as he fled, by a passenger. This poem is about how the world let him down. Everybody.

Toast: U-S-A!

Kin'shar: Thanks, and thanks for visiting.

Ivan: Thanks muchly. Your best is still to come.

CD: Thanks, much more fun being than watching.

MD: Interesting about the questions. I usually try to avoid them in poetry too, but this one demanded questions, because there are no answers. I do tend to over-use them in prose, trying to drop that habit.
 
Wilson: thanks for that. I'm trying to learn to go past the thoughts and to the heart. Still working on it, but I'm glad you enjoyed.

XD: thanks. hopefully more to come.

Yas: Thanks so much, you are really very kind.

PP: The problem isn't your Mac it's that the dumb Herald takes their stories off after a week. As a freelancer that's annoying - I had a story in there once that no longer exists in e-copy, which makes showing it to people more difficult. So it goes.

Kissa: sorry about that - just kidding. Yeah, I hate when people apologize constantly over nothing - we do that a lot in Canada. On the other hand, the sincerest, most needed apologies, are all too rare.
 
ps to Lynn: I haven't been able to comment on your blog lately for some reason it won't let me.
 
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