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Chapters (73)
  1. Cover
  2. Note to the Reader
  3. Illumination of the Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew
  4. I. abu ghraib arias
  5. The Blues of Lane McCotter
  6. (echo /ex/): “In the name of God…”
  7. Searching the Koran (Standard Operating Procedure)
  8. (echo /ex/): “In the beginning…”
  9. The Blues of Javal Davis
  10. (echo /ex/): “next day…”
  11. Public Address/Ghost Soldiers
  12. (echo /ex/): “his name is G…”
  13. The Blues of Charles Graner
  14. (echo /ex/): “On the third day…”
  15. Handling the Koran (Standard Operating Procedure)
  16. (echo /ex/): “First the man…”
  17. Document Exploitation (Standard Operating Procedure)
  18. (echo /ex/): “Now these are the generations…”
  19. The Blues of Lynddie England
  20. (echo /ex/): “me…”
  21. The Blues of Ken Davis
  22. (echo /ex/): “Now I am what I saw…”
  23. MUSLIM BURIAL (Standard Operating Procedure)
  24. (echo /ex/): “And it came to pass…”
  25. The Blues of Joe Darby
  26. (echo /ex/)
  27. II. first recitative
  28. Woman Mourning Son
  29. Recipe from the Abbasid
  30. Home Sweet Home
  31. The Iraqi Curator’s PowerPoint
  32. Black Site (Exhibit Q)
  33. Asymmetries
  34. Salaam Epigrams
  35. War Stories
  36. III. hung lyres
  37. “The new theory: not to praise too much…”
  38. “When the bombs fell, she could barely raise…”
  39. “you mute you without openings…”
  40. “Is the ear…”
  41. “in the cell of else…”
  42. “this is the air we script to lips…”
  43. “I had no names to blazon their tender…”
  44. “She asks, is that man crying…”
  45. “What does it mean, I say.”
  46. IV. second recitative
  47. Breathing Together
  48. Testimony (after Daniel Heyman)
  49. When I Was a Child, I Lived as a Child, I Said to My Dad
  50. Black Site (Exhibit I)
  51. Love Potion #42
  52. Saddam’s Fingerprints
  53. Etruscan Cista Handle
  54. Black Site (Exhibit M)
  55. A Toast (for Nawal Nasrallah)
  56. Cell/(ph)one (A simultaneity in four voices)
  57. V. homefront/removes
  58. “I hear it, at times, even in the wind.”
  59. “was taken was rapidly…”
  60. “What consequence is a body.”
  61. “tried hanging myself…”
  62. “I was planning my lesson on imagery…”
  63. “taken to outside court…”
  64. “In the wake of.”
  65. “I suspended upside…”
  66. “You look at me / looking at you.”
  67. “so I could pass the time… ”
  68. “As if, somehow, I were responsible.”
  69. <hover to see video>
  70. “On the flight overseas…”
  71. “I did not know my…”
  72. Compline
  73. Notes

(echo /ex/): “First the man…”

Document Exploitation (Standard Operating Procedure)

(echo /ex/): “Now these are the generations…”

The Blues of Lynddie England

The Blues of Lynddie England

[G] played me

I guess I was blind

by love

maybe it was

[                            ]

for documentation

maybe it was

for his own

amusement

[                            ]

I don’t know

what was going through

his head

but he took it

[                            ]

it shows

he has power

over me

anything he asked

[                            ]

he knew

I would do

(echo /ex/): “me…”

The Blues of Ken Davis

(echo /ex/): “Now I am what I saw…”

MUSLIM BURIAL (Standard Operating Procedure)

(echo /ex/): “And it came to pass…”

The Blues of Joe Darby

The Blues of Joe Darby

I laughed at first I did

not know what I was looking at

a bunch of bodies bending over

a pyramid of tumbling

They call me bulls-eye they call me traitor

the pictures were taken

the pictures I gave them

now they are everywhere and I

can’t go home again

They call me walking dead call me waking night

I dream they stand on naked

boxes again they back on each other’s

backs again they bloody mouth from flinch

of dogs they hands on sandbagged heads

call me talking dead call me waking eye

I gun to sleep again I closet night

no sleep but I would give them up again

I close exposed I wake and listen

I would give them up again

(echo /ex/)

II. first recitative

Woman Mourning Son

Woman Mourning Son

—Najaf

I pull up the blinds, they screech in retreat,

mad grackles beaking for space on the lawn.

I flip open the news and she flutters out,

trailing the blot of her shadow. I yawn,

her mouth yawns and yawns. Like wings, her chador

unfurls over a bare, bleached street. She looks

almost like she’s flying, one leg cut off

by the photo. The shape of her shadow’s

an F-16, the flat plane of her hand

the jet nose, the other hand a missile

tucked so gently beneath the wing. And now

the blot of that shadow’s a flailing bat,

a ragged flag—this black-clad woman’s hands

open and skyward, as if she wants to vault

the blot of this shadow. From above, it looks

just like whirling, a waltz with no one

but chadors and shadows. Now she’s lost

her face in the ink. The road is a white

sheet. Somewhere someone’s hands danced

over a keyboard to deliver the ordnance.

Recipe from the Abbasid

Recipe from the Abbasid

Skin & clean a fat, young sheep & open it

like a door, a port city hosting overseas guests

& remove its stomach. In its interior, place

surveyors in exploratory khaki, a stuffed goose

& in the goose’s belly, a stuffed hen, & in the hen,

machine gun nests, C rations, grenades, a stuffed

pigeon, & in the pigeon’s belly, a stuffed thrush,

& in the thrush’s belly, contractual negotiations