Overland literary journal

Dishonourable Discharge

Written by Maxine Clarke on 6-11-2009

fucking arabs
man / are they crazy
yeah / okay we know hasan
wz born in virginia
& american bred
bt the real truth
wz there in his blood:
jordanian

& before you say racist
lemme just say
september eleven
before you jump on that
lemme throw at you
seven seven
mean anything to you
how long before we learn
to lock the fucking gates
& save our children
close the fucking borders
send the brown skins back
freeloading boaters or even
if they're fucking born here
who cares
twelve real americans died
at last count
& he injured thirty one

they were sending him to counsel soldiers
to shoot his mother / the army
wz shipping malik to afghanistan
probably / when he couldn/t deal with this
an american born soldier became un-american

they were sending him to ease the guilt
of those who killed his sisters / the army
wz shipping him to afghanistan
& probably his objections just
didn’t go down too well

today / malik nadal hasan
dishonourably discharged himself
the army spilled american blood
bt somehow the news on cnn is
a desperate brown man
army trained / born & bred
who no longer is the slightest bit
american

(crossposted @ slamup.blogspot.com)