OH WHEN THE SAINTS (POETRY)

Abu Ghraib, april 2004

things were fine and fun:
R & R, the Falluja way.
pictures for the home front. smiling
prison guards captured in a flash,

as if touched by a feather. how the light
was bent in favour of their dark practises.
naked bodies neatly piled up, touching
each other, fornicating. those who didn’t

grasp their first crush course in democracy
could mumble Allah instead. they bent over
for ladies with stars and stripes, sergeants
engulfed by patriotism and penis envy,

shams implanting shame in them, shams
who burned their souls with cigarette marks.
America’s Highest found them to blame
because war without morals must be horrific!

MARK MEEKERS (translation: LAURENS RADEMAKERS)