These are Words Hung by the Neck
These are Words
hung by the Neck
The angelus of wars my chest evokes
(The Broken Tower Hart Crane)
Here are words
must have been
hung
by the neck,
beaten
tarred and feathered
scandalised,
force-fed on hunger strike
against
the dumb motherfucking
stupidity of humans.
Such words wake
in the middle of the night
wondering
how come we have to live
in such a prison?
Why is it so dark?
Where has all the light gone?
Wondering
why they are orphaned and so unloved
and how they are used as weapons
when in past lives
we were like flowers or birds
and flew free
over heads
whose tongues way below
were barely raised out of the mud?
Here there are words
must have been abandoned
in ghettos
lurking among the trash, homeless
and almost evicted from language itself,
words on TV when you can’t pull the plug
words that assaulted your sister, your mother,
your cousin
rich words dressed it smart suits
it never rains on
(in America:
“Let’s fucking kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the fucking lot of them”
Donald Trump, April 2017, about Bashar al-Assad[1])
words instead of singing
went into politics and made money
words that hid in the dark
words that made it up the ladder
went down into the sewers
words that gave birth to secrets
better left unsaid
words like poison
like well-paid mercenaries
like refugees fleeing
across generations, religions, ideologies, passions.
Words, like Christians, but nailed to
someone else’s cross
in the wrong place and the wrong time
words trafficked, sold, prostituted,
whores!
These are words no one wants to hear
(in the Islamic Republic of Iran:
“inciting corruption and prostitution”
“spreading propaganda against the system”
“gathering and colluding to commit crimes against national security” )
words everyone is afraid to laugh at
(in Turkey:
“open incitement to commit crimes”
“openly disparaging the state, the government, the judiciary, the military
and the security forces of the Republic of Turkey”
“disrupting the unity of the state and the integrity of the country”
“praising crimes and criminals”[2])
words of men (not really men)
(and women, likewise)
words with power
loaded like weapons
twisted like wire into whips
beaten brutally into flesh
burnt into brains
(in Turkey again:
“…insult to Turkey[3], the Turkish nation[4], or Turkish government institutions”
“insulting the President” [5]
“incitement to animosity”
“Insulting a public official for their duty”
“open incitement to defy the law”
“slander of a public official…)[6]
in so many places
(in China:
“Picking quarrels and provoking trouble” [7])
in the Philippines:
(“Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now there are three million drug addicts … I’d be happy to slaughter them.” Philippines president, Rodrigo Duterte[8])
everywhere, it seems
there are words
betrayed, brutalised, assaulted
left lying in the gutter with our dreams
left walking endlessly
the empty roads homeward
only to find
no one is there.
These are words
hung by the neck,
war-like words
armed to their teeth
then later
words crippled and maimed
without remorse
words it will take centuries
to drain the hate from
the greed from, the cruelty,
the twisted lust
that still tears tongues
from the mouths
of the unmentionable
words without brothers or sisters
words abandoned by the side of the road, among
ruins, beneath the wreckage, after the
soldiers have left, after the killing
has stopped.
Dead.
These are words that tore the mask
from the face of monsters
words that wrote chapters in a history book
of horrors
words you could not believe
if you stood there
naked and shivering
wondering what planet you had
been born on
and where these cynical
ruthless
soulless
sons of bitches
these liars, presidents, ‘politicians’,
these generals, thugs and hooligans
had come from
those with their fucking mouths on fire.
And their cold cruel hearts
buried in stone.
séamas carraher,
31 May 2019, Dublin – 9 September, Buttevant, Co. Cork
*****
Update, December, 2019 – Words hung by the neck?
Following Turkey’s 2018 cynical and murderous assault on language (to say nothing of the beings that speak it) Operation Olive Branch (Turkish: Zeytin Dalı Harekâtı)), on December 2, 2019 as part of (the equally murderous and cynical) Operation Peace Spring (Turkish: Barış Pınarı Harekâtı), Turkish artillery, shelling near a children’s school in Tal Rifaat, northern Aleppo, killed 8 children, all were under the age of 15 along with a number of adults and many injured… (‘Tal Rifaat Massacre’)
“Our mission is to prevent the creation of a terror corridor across our southern border, and to bring peace to the area,” Turkish President and Chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (of “Democracy is like a tram; you get off when you have reached your destination.” fame) said, adding, “we will preserve Syria’s territorial integrity and liberate local communities from terrorists,” https://www.aa.com.tr/en/operation-peace-spring/operation-peace-spring-starts-in-n-syria-erdogan/1607147#!
The Kurdish Red Crescent (Heyva Sor) released their report detailing the Turkish massacre of eight children alongside two adults in Til Rifat town of the Shehba Canton on December 2nd.
- Name: Abid Alfetah Aliko; Age: 3 years old
- Name: Aref Jafer Mohammad; Age: 6 years old
- Name: Mohammad Mohammad Omer; Age: 7 years old
- Name: Imad Ahmed Kefo; Age: 9 years old
- Name: Mustafa Mohammad Majeed; Age: 10 years old
- Name: Hemodeh Mohammmad Ali; Age: 11 years old
Two brothers
- Samir Abid Al Rehman Heso, 12 years old &
- Mohammad Abid Al Rehman Heso, 15 years old.
- Name: Ali Mehmoud Osman; Age: 54 years old
- Name: Husien Abid Allah Kul Dedeh; Age: 74 years old
https://anfenglishmobile.com/rojava-syria/report-on-turkish-massacre-of-children-in-til-rifat-40179
R e f e r e n c e s
Cover Image
https://www.flickr.com/photos/8605011@N02/47201285871 (“fair use”)
The Broken Tower, by Hart Crane is from The Complete Poems of Hart Crane – The Centennial Edition, from Liveright Publishing, © 1932, pp. 160 and 161.
https://www2.bc.edu/john-g-boylan/files/brokentower.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be-JYAmHMGQ
http://www.seamascarraher.blogspot.ie/
Sources
[1] …as quoted by “Bob Woodward, in The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-woodwards-new-book-reveals-a-nervous-breakdown-of-trumps-presidency/2018/09/04/b27a389e-ac60-11e8-a8d7-0f63ab8b1370_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b8cef19c9d19
[2] 2 HDP MPs sentenced over terrorism charges
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/2-hdp-mps-sentenced-over-terrorism-charges-141269
[3] Turkey Jails HDP MP Figen Yüksekdağ
https://www.globalrights.info/2017/06/turkey-jails-hdp-mp-figen-yuksekdag-again/
[4] 2017, Another BEATING for Press Freedom in Turkey
https://www.globalrights.info/2018/01/76925/
[5] November, 2016
https://www.globalrights.info/2016/11/75524/
[6] …as per Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code https://www.globalrights.info/2017/12/selahattin-demirtas-trial/
[7] (It comes under article 293 of the 1997 revision of the People’s Republic of China’s Penal Code, and carries a maximum sentence of five years) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picking_quarrels_and_provoking_trouble)
[8] Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte in his own words
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