nthposition online magazine

The Torture Channel

by Baron Wormser

[ poetry - march 07 ]

I want to watch the Torture Channel.
I am tired of regular violence -
Cops shooting hapless criminals,
Then kicking the corpse with a look
That is half-sad-eyed, half gratified
Or savoring an aperçu
About mortality - death being little more
Than a prepositional phrase
Appended to the free verse of life.

I hear there are cameras in Guantánamo.
I want to see the blindfolds,
The prods, the underwater tank,
The rods for orifices.
I am paying for it.
Right now a plane is aloft
With a body or two in a bag.
The bag is alive and being delivered.
"Here is a terrorist.
We Westerners are not so stupid
After all nor squeamish."
In certain quarters this garners respect.

I want to see the torturers.
Women do it, too - gender equity.
I am safe to watch television
But it doesn't have all the channels.
There should a Poetry Channel
Where I read my poems
In a voice of pained frivolity
Or deranged seriousness.
It might be torture to people
Who only watch crime shows.

Some of the Nazi higher ups
Read poetry though I doubt many
Of the guards did.
A few big time torturers were hanged
After the war; most people
Put their evil in a drawer and shut it -
An exciting episode that got bad reviews.

It is still in there,
Smirking and simpering,
Offering rationales, masking
Boredom and anger, wringing out
Fear's dark droplets. Sometimes I think
I hear it at night when the TV is off.

It sounds very thin and far away
Almost like music or a voice
With a broken windpipe.