Rules for War Photographers
Recognize what the war is,
and where, then patiently wait for
the photograph to happen
Be objective and never
interfere
Even when the baby is
drowning
when the village is
burning
when the women are on their
hands and knees praying, begging
you to stop
where the girl is running with
her back on fire
Do not become the subject yourself
even when captured by
the enemy
Especially when captured by
the enemy
To not take these pictures
so we will never know what
you have known,
to see what you have seen
these pictures are too terrible
for words
Violate all these rules
whenever possible
The Crime Scene
after Stan Rice
All the faces in the ill-lit street
are wearing masks like equity
actors off-stage in guerilla theater,
a strange interlude with police cars,
emergency flashers, real murder
weapons and riddled bodies
emboldened by death, their heads
covered by rags, a black plague
mask for disease prevention in
a rat-infested tin pan alley awaiting
a visitation of wisemen from another
vision drawn with white chalk and
defined by yellow caution tapes,
Caucasian chalk circles drawn
on stained concrete for filling in
the spaces with blood evidence and
severed finger prints; the muffled
hooves of a mounted police cordon
nearby indicate the pale horses,
pale riders, have arrived.
Found Photo, “The Garden of Earthly Delights” in the Background
The talk here is
not of Spain
nor of the Civil
War
Not of Picasso
bleeding,
a failing century’s
grief
but of the harm
men do to other
men
the held-breath
silence of just-
before-the-end
and what
comes after
Mayakovsky at 3 AM
Eyes closed, stuffed head in
a noose, broken arms
wrenched aside useless as
foam, the smoke of many
cigarettes in glass ashtrays
on the littered, low table,
dealt playing cards folded
into hands, played tricks
amidst litter: empty clear
bottles, overturned shot glasses,
spent cartridges, dueling pistols,
barrels still crossed on the wall
above the torso of a bald,
black veiled woman, painted
eyes half-open, false lips
the color of dried blood.
Enola Gay, the result: details
Three wisemen with gas masks,
their asbestos suits alight; dis-
colored babies, the egg heads and
the deformed; body parts of the afflicted
blue and exploding; peace bridge
over a river, running red as ink, collapsing,
a conveyance, a memorial no more;
railroad trestles melting, steel matchsticks
pliable as plastic; graveyard markers
reduced from stone to ash; altars
for the ancients and the newly dead
wiped away; great beasts rising from
the human muck, primordial, simian,
their eyes white as heat lightning,
as atomic mushrooms after the fire
storm, after the manumission of these
wandering souls; the black impressions,
shadows frozen in flight.
Portrait of the Artist, Photo of a Mock Turner in the Background
Brought back to life, his eyes
have seen it all on both sides
of the bar, the swarthy demons,
the headless huntsmen, range
riders on white buffalo shooting
the dead warriors when artificial
respiration won’t do what jesus
did, making a mockery out of
mortality by raising Lazarus three
days gone, decayed and festering,
an incomplete new man cursed with
vision once the white scabs of his
eyes have been removed, once new
uncanny visions of resurrected pain
have been felt; the risen elk on steep
promontory wait amid the unearthly
swirl of colored mists, the creator’s
face suggests what cannot be said,
“nothing I can say will make it better.”