Dear Carla
Cal keeps sending me stuff
I keep sending it to you
With my slight adaptations…
Perry
I endorse her rage
I approve of it
Even though the Buddhist masters say
Anger is a poison
They’d tell Gloria Emerson
To cultivate such expansive compassion
That would include even
Secretary of “Defense” Robert McNamara
I say, Fuck no
She was spot on in the decades after the war
When she had a vision
of how justice should be meted out to him
Because it would be unprecedented
Never has a U.S. war criminal
Been held accountable
Ever
So, it would only be right to see McNamara squirm
(But it’s too late now for him
But not for, say, Rumsfeld
To undergo a similar treatment vis-a-vis the Iraqis)
Hey, bodhisattvas
The problem isn’t Gloria’s (or my) rage
It’s people’s seeming equanimity
I know that’s supposed to be one of the heavenly abodes
You wanna chant songs
That are at a third-grade level, fine
But Emerson did not lose sight of suffering,
Not the cause, the US cause, of Vietnamese suffering
–from work-in-progress, Our Heroic and Ceaseless 24/7 Struggle against Tsuris
