Rapists, aka Bloodshot
An older version of this poem appears in my 1st chapbook, Bloggerel. Here's my "final answer" to the question of whether to revise it. I read this final version at the Come Together: Imagine Peace benefit in Cleveland on Friday night. Video of that reading will be coming as soon as I can get to it.
Rapists
Indian summer sun squints, bloodshot like the
Wide wounded eyes of my cynical Seneca ancestors.
On and on
Wide wounded eyes of my cynical Seneca ancestors.
On and on
and anon,
An endless queue of unrelenting conquistadors,
Lusting for booty
Lusting for booty
or bust,
Defile our trust and defame the name of God
Defile our trust and defame the name of God
in the name of God.
Opportunity does not knock for trusting tribesmen,
Opportunity does not knock for trusting tribesmen,
be they from Arizona
Africa
the Amazon
or Akron.
Riding roughshod over every allegedly endless empire
Riding roughshod over every allegedly endless empire
Including America the beautifully dutiful,
The cursed hearse of history leads a parade of pathetic
and unsympathetic plotters,
plodders,
priests and presidents,
Electable eels who feel their forked tongues
and dung
Make them agents of distinction
instead of
extinction.
Sweetly sighing lullabies of liberty
Sweetly sighing lullabies of liberty
and expediency,
These leaders open
Their bomb bays
as they pray
First for the unconditional surrender of their enemies
And last,
if at all,
For the bloodshot souls
Of the soon to be charred
Children of Hiroshima
Hanoi
Belfast
Belgrade
Baghdad
Bethlehem and
Coming soon
to a theatre
of war
near
you
Posted by Jesus Crisis at 3/22/2009 10:53 AM 
Categories: Poetry by JC
Tags: Cleveland Poetry John Burroughs Jesus Crisis War and Peace
Categories: Poetry by JC
Tags: Cleveland Poetry John Burroughs Jesus Crisis War and Peace
Like this as much as the first version.. I like the rearrangement for visual interest and the last several lines added makes it even more universal than it already was.
I like your poetry John... the more I hear of other peoples I realize you have a rare gift of uniqueness. I am never ever bored by anything I ever read that you've write. It always catches my attention or interest and it always stands out. I remember your poems... unlike other peoples who I often don't because they tend to be much the same one to another.
I hope you take the opportunity to offer it up for publication somewhere with the revisions and Title change.
What is the significance of bloodshot...other than the reference to the bloodshot souls... something meaningful I assume?
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Thank you for your kind words. When I first wrote the old version, the ending felt incomplete - but after I blogged it last year and several folks liked it exactly as it was, I decided to leave it and publish it that way in Bloggerel. When the earliest version was written (early 90s, shortly after I was falsely accused of the crime that would send me to prison) we hadn't yet had Belgrade and Baghdad to write about. Plus it was an acrostic then - the first letters of the lines spelled out "I would not rape a soul." But that made for awkward line breaks. Holdng on to the acrostic made the poem about me - but there are more important things than me, and sometimes we have to let go of the past to advance. I had all this and more in mind when I finished revising this poem. Now the line breaks make more sense and accurately reflect how I hear and read the piece.
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It would be interesting to see the acrostic version... I didn't know the history of the poem or recall you ever publishing the acrostic version on-line so thanks for sharing that.
Reading your comment here I don't think you needed to remove the personal intent.. my own opinion..
The phrase "I would not rape a soul".. has more than a personal meaning... it really is quite universal... because war is rape an a larger scale.. it brutalizes society and the individuals that survive it. It leaves its indelible mark on history in the same way it does on a solitary victim. So a personal story can still have a wider relevance.
You may have felt for personal reasons you wanted to change it almost as a mark of where you've traveled to.. but as far as it detracting from the intent of the poem. it doesn't sound like it would have..
Mostly because not everyone who reads it will know your personal history so will not think of that when they read it.. They will read it and judge it on its own merits.
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I didn't do it to remove the personal, but to make the line breaks make more sense. Now someone who reads it aloud will be more likely to read it as I intended. Plus now it gives the image of a bomb falling from the sky. There are several other reasons too. This is the best version for several reasons.
The 2008 version in Bloggerel is still acrostic - that's one reason some of the lines are so long. The original early 90s version is posted in a comment on last year's blog (http://crisisblog.crisischronicles.com/2008/06/03/rapists.aspx) - though it's also acrostic, it's essentially a completely different poem.
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Well.. I guess an apology is in order.. I didn't understand I think the correct meaning of acrostic.. and that's based on my ignorance of various poetic forms. Looking it up.. after this comment now I do.
I don't naturally look for or see messages hidden in a piece unless I'm aware they are there to look for. So wasn't aware it was even there in the original till you pointed it out.. I see it now of course.. and see how you've changed it.
And my comment on the personal was based on what you said in your comment because that is what I understood as part of the reason for not feeling compelled to keep it.
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I actually didn't know what an acrostic was when I first wrote it - though I wrote a lot of poems like that. I used the "I would not rape a soul" running down the page as a writing prompt of sorts. Started with "I" and pretty much wrote stream of consciousness - didn't look for a "W" word next, but when I came to one by natural flow I dropped down to the next line and kept going with the stream. That's why some of the lines are so much longer than some others in (especially) the earliest version.
My Peace in Queues, which appeared in the Feb. issue of the Cartier Street Review, is another early acrostic.
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I have been reading your "final answer" in a very good anti-war poem you wrote some time back. However, it omits the "final solution" to the Jewish "problem" in Europe when 6,000,000 Jews and others were forcibly taken to the death camps of Nazi Germany and exterminated. Viktor Frankl, eminent psychologist who has inspired millions with his lectures and writings, managed to survive the horror of being taken to several concentration camps along with his father, mother, wife, sister and brother-in-law. They were all victims of this extermination. To read as I did yesterday about the hell that these poor souls went though is further evidence of the ghastly brutality that went on in our world in the 20th century
and reminds me of why all of us should be grateful that we are still alive and well in spite of fighting the terrorism going on everywhere today.
Peace and poetry to you John...
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I was consciously alluding to the "final solution" when I wrote "final answer." In rattling off the B words, I thought of many others like Berlin, Belgium and Bergen-Belsen. There have been lots of bullshit war B "movies" - and plenty Benito Bushes who enjoy treating real like reel.
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kill the indigenous and feel superior.
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A perfect distillation!
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From Facebook:
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WAR
WAR
First: Someone decides to do it.
Then; Everyone loves it.
There are rules written,
and unwritten rules given.
IT is mangled flesh and twisted machines,
when it is at its best.
When it is at its worst it is annihilation.
A word that is not often used,
a word used to describe obliviation,
and total destruction.
A three letter word
that is worst than any four letter word
i have ever heard,
and i have heard them all.
Eye am not amused at WAR.
Men dying for and against.
With and without.
In Power and without food.
The best that can be said,
We won the war.
The worst was added,
We lost.They are the winners.
Disgrace to the human race is war.
We still go in and fight.War.
Life just can not be kept,
Life must be given,
swallowed up in death,
Until the Victory is given.
What is good about a war.
The END of war is heaven.
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Amen, brother!
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Pretty good post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your blog posts. Any way I'll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon.
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