Historical landscape, Mary Jo Bang // Radio Baghdad, Patti Smith

Fotografia de Odd Andersen — daqui  

Little liquor-drink umbrellas drowse

At the margin of the mouth hole,

The moon eye, an open coronal

Ringing some mundane mulberry sea

Of no-color ice and ambrosial water.

A draggled girl gossips,

Looks to the sky’s foam-capped surface

Where a cloud-cuckoo blimp holds a pose

In the difficult kingdom of conundrums.

Her lips are counting

The insurgent dead,

The shredded children—unsightly

In skulled-and-crossboned cradles.

In History’s shadow, a rippled landscape

Of glorified relic tanks, cold-blooded domes.

Overhead, oracle voices

Coil around the O in the classic song, “O,

It Is Only Oil.”

On Oedipus shelves of dreamscapes,

Sleep-twisted, horses are at stop, rooted

To the light’s blank ruin.

Mary Jo Bang

Radio Baghdad

Suffer not Your neighbor's affliction

Suffer not Your neighbor's paralysis

But extend your hand Extend your hand

Lest you vanish in the city And be but a trace

Just a vanished ghost And your legacy

All the things you knew Science, mathematics, thought

Severely weakened Like irrigation systems

In the tired veins forming From the Tigris and Euphrates

In the realm of peace All the world revolved

All the world revolved Around a perfect circle

City of Baghdad City of scholars

Empirical humble Center of the world

City in ashes City of Baghdad

City of Baghdad Abrasive aloof

Oh, in Mesopotamia Aloofness ran deep

Deep in the veins of the great rivers

That form the base Of Eden

And the tree The tree of knowledge

Held up its arms To the sky

All the branches of knowledge All the branches of knowledge

Cradling Cradling

Civilization In the realm of peace

All the world revolved Around a perfect circle

Oh Baghdad Center of the world

City of ashes With its great mosques

Erupting from the mouth of god Rising from the ashes like

a speckled bird Splayed against the mosaic sky

Oh, clouds around We created the zero

But we mean nothing to you You would believe

That we are just some mystical tale We are just a swollen belly

That gave birth to Sinbad, Scheherazade We gave birth

Oh, oh, to the zero The perfect number

We invented the zero And we mean nothing to you

Our children run through the streets

And you sent your flames Your shooting stars

Shock and awe Shock and awe

Like some, some Imagined warrior production

Twenty-first century No chivalry involved

No Bushido

Oh, the code of the West Long gone

Never been Where does it lie?

You came, you came Through the west

Annihilated a people And you come to us

But we are older than you You come you wanna

You wanna come and rob the cradle

Of civilization And you read yet you read

You read Genesis You read of the tree

You read of the tree Beget by god

That raised its branches into the sky Every branch of knowledge

Of the cradle of civilization

Of the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates

Oh, in Mesopotamia Aloofness ran deep

The face of Eve turning What sky did she see

What garden beneath her feet The one you drill

You drill Pulling the blood of the earth

Little droplets of oil for bracelets Little jewels

Sapphires You make bracelets

Round your own world We are weeping tears

Rubies We offer them to you

We are just Your Arabian nightmare

We invented the zero But we mean nothing to you

Your Arabian nightmare

City of stars City of scholarship

Science City of ideas

City of light City

City of ashes That the great Caliph

Walked through His naked feet formed a circle

And they built a city A perfect city of Baghdad

In the realm of peace And all the world revolved

And they invented And they mean nothing to you

Nothing to you Nothing

Go to sleep Go to sleep my child

Go to sleep And I'll sing you a lullaby

A lullaby for our city A lullaby of Baghdad

Go to sleep Sleep my child

Sleep Sleep...

Run Run...

You sent your lights Your bombs

You sent them down on our city Shock and awe

Like some crazy t.v. show

They're robbing the cradle of civilization

They're robbing the cradle of civilization

They're robbing the cradle of civilization

Suffer not The paralysis of your neighbor

Suffer not But extend your hand

Patti Smith