Regina KRUMMEL is Professor Emerita, Queens College, City University of New York. She is actively involved in teaching in prisons and will be acting as an individual therapist for a woman in prison. Most recently she has published a book of creative non-fiction, The Underground Woman and a novel Liquorto Casket, Cummings & Hathaway, publishers.

"MARINE SHOT UNARMED PRISONER"

--New York Times, 11/17/04


Cursing, armed

Well intentioned

Marine

Lifts his weapon

Black, heavy burden

Fires on cowering, half alive

Unarmed prisoner


 In the remains of death

A fairy tale wasteland

A filthy trench reveals

A child’s notebook

An exercise book in English

Neat handwriting

Clear printing

“She isn’t playing today

Neither is the other girl.”

Tanks roll over cars

Starving dogs search for bodily remains

Fires burn out of control

Destroying all that remains of Falluja

the exercise book is no more


 Photos destroy my morning coffee joy

Elections are expected

In the New Year

Insured by twelve thousand more American Soldiers


 Tanks, hummers roll on

Soldiers shoot at all moving objects

All rebels in the wrong place

The ramparts red glare...

Our mission is here in Iraq

In the standing minaret


 First Battalion, Eighth Marine Forces

Shoot- Direct hit

“We turned a guy into rubble,” marine boasts

More 500 pound bombs

Called in

Mosque is obliterated

Target secured

Before elections in 2005.

 

Copyright © Regina Krummel, 2005. All Rights Reserved.
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