home > literaria > Poetry > Imagine Nation Imagine Nation [Notes for a Stokstad (un)Manifesto, since Sept.11] What about a new political party the Imagine party. Let's have an Imagine Nation with an eight year moratorium on political servants from the legal or business professions -only poets or artists or creative people or at least women only, in office. Now I feel the wrong, I've done, for letting bone dry political science majors get elected, rather than me when they have no known training in compassion, other cultures, and treasuring every breath of every human child. We have failed, somehow, the artists the creatives, by letting business and legal people run this country How did someone as small minded as our current president get in power while I was trying to stabilize improv acting techniques active listening and the subtle action of the en- jambed free verse line? This is the first time I wish that I had kept closer watch on those people. In my Imagined Nation Abraham Lincoln is still living and he chuckles out the story of Brer Rabbit and the Silent Tarbaby who wouldn't say where Osama is and so, Brer Rabbit hit him and got his fist stuck and then kicked him and got his foot stuck and pretty soon was enmired and enmeshed in tar and there was little to tell the rabbit from the Tarliban Yes, Lincoln would be famous again by naming for us our current tarbaby diplomacy But in the Imagine Party I am pretending to be the President of the United States, and I am handling things differently than they have been since September 11 for example after thousands of people fell to earth that day we had the sympathy of the world And in MY Country, we didn't blame anyone, we took responsibility. We asked ourselves what did we do to create an enemy? What can we do to stop that? And then we withdrew all our infidel troops from Saudi Arabia or else replaced them all, in a deft gesture, with only American soldiers who are Islamic. Then we bombed Afghanistan with food, gave medicine to Iraq And stared long and hard at Israel and the Palestinians until they found a way, at least in theory. We took responsibility because otherwise we are victims. No one who died in the collapsing towers should be thought of as a victim. A martyr to peace A volunteer for compassion a hero of innocence, yes, but not a victim. In my Imaginary world you never are in power if you agree that you are a victim no, those people do not deserve to lose their lives, as some kind of victim, to those other misguided people. I see no connection between the killed and the killers, the fallen New Yorkers, move, quietly into the light and by choosing to give their lives in this sacrifice they negate the airborne termination and become the heroes that they truly are who, according to the laws of karma may very well have chosen this end before they chose this beginning. No one gets away with blaming in love anymore Everyone has to take responsibility for their own stuff What if countries did the same? If you hit me what did I do to make that happen? why did I choose that? Then, if you hurt me, I am not the victim, I am the creator, and I am free to choose differently the next time. And now the Media spinsters here, and there In Washington and Kabul fight, like hungry chickens, over the victim position. In a pitched battle of words, such that somehow the word terrorist, thrown from our side, turns into freedomfighter and is thrown back From a country desperately trying to convince itself that Islam is under attack. I've got news for Kabul: there are no infidels anymore and there haven't been any since the third century b.c. No one in the United States wants to attack Islam Why should we? We already have you surrounded by apathy, That's right No one even cares about Islam, face it, to most Americans you are poverty stricken throwbacks, hanging on to a deserted, parched, ancient creed in order to feel good about not being able to do anything else. Still, in my Imagine Nation we love you, we admire your shouting fire your true belief, your energy for God, we just wish that you knew that we deeply care and are fascinated with you even though we stop short at your thought that only Islam is right, only your way of life is pure, and that infidels are expendable, since with that you bring us nothing new to ponder, since we have our fundamentalists, too. In my Imagined Country we didn't bomb Afghanistan because there was no connection between the Taliban and downtown New York City. Lest we forget, it's hard to punish the people who did this, because they are dead, plus, the afterlife, if you believe in it, may have some surprises of its own for those people. That's right, no one who makes a mess of living beings gets away clean. All killing marks the killer.... without exception. So, it's not up to us to seek and punish especially when there is no one to shoot no one to bomb, no one to kill. In my Imagine Nation the establishing shot in the news videos now show an old hippie, going to the store for metal polish, and then the camera shot cuts to his hand, rooting around in the chest in the attic, then the closeups of the cloth, slowly polishing, and cleaning, followed by the tie-dye shirted guy hanging the old Peace sign once again, around his neck.