Peace Fast 2nd Week

I finished my second fast for something nebulous and undefined in Iraq...peace, maybe. But I don't think this group here in the USA will ever let Iraq have peace again, certainly not within my lifetime. They will afflict and bedevil that country; they will "gitmo" it and washboard it; they will use a "Salvadoran" model for death squads, then a "Korea" model for disunity, then some other nonsensical theoretical construct as a Procrustean bed to torture that Islamic forcing garden of unhappiness. Fasting is gruesome, as I have said. Add to that the fact that everyone thinks a faster is (a) a nut, and (b) a wierdo, and you have a situation where you doubt your own bona fides and no one to say no to these doubts. The only thing that keeps me going is the realization that I can still count on a good number of Iraqis to die every day. I do not think I am more noble or moral than any one else. That old business of judging oneself or one's group relative to what others do is really quite jaded for one of my advanced years. It is a child's game and I am too old to play it anymore. If I have to fast, then I fast. It means absolutely nothing about anyone else. And this is true even though I justify my actions by delineating the actions of others in unflattering terms. Writing and arguing is something we are used to. It is how I must inter-act with you. Fasting is between God and me. God and us... I decided to fast and write a poem each week. Jeezalou, as Frank Barrone would say. The Second Week's Poem. (apology for rough drafts. I do not possess a fund of pre-written poetry to put on the peace blog:http://peace-weaving.blogspot.com/ ) The Party Store Of Peace They were tearing up the roadway by the party store of peace. (no esta bodega…cerevisa no se vende aqui) The sidewalk had been swallowed up and there was no place to park, so we drove around to the lot around the corner, by the flood plain, but it hadn’t rained for a while and global warming gives us places to park. So we got a meter with time on it, near the killer colored tiles from a mural made in oaxaca- broken into pieces and half buried that had lain next to the electrical transformer ever since the city threw it out… every year some kid stumbles onto it for the first time… and wonders what the hell! and wonders what the oaxaca? and then forgets. I’d forget all this, too, if it wasn’t tethered like Paris Hilton. We walk by a ladies’ store a fossil found in stone, with clothes in showy windows as you funnel to the door. Inside the Andrews Sisters sing on the PA. Finally we arrive at the party store of peace: (no esta bodega…cerevisa no se vende aqui) the a/c is on the fritz, the peace owner is wearing an orangey plaid shirt with striped shorts and hot pink alligator shoes- his white hair as long as that of a guy that makes candles and soaps for the farmers’ market- somewhere a woman screamed; the supplier in Carolina had a new batch of ink; the crescent moon silver is now a battleship grey…I mean, don’t you think you’d let us know? 2,000 cards! she will call! we will hear about this! and mrs. ormond’s order wuz never even shipped! called Virginia myself…liar! fedex got zippo from zip code there to zip code here! bupkis! bupkiss! buttkiss, egypt! So I said, yeah, my suppliers used to change quality and leave it for us to find out… it is so damn hot! May I get a peace card? all out. When…? Next week for the fast? dunno. haven’t paid the peace bill… It was so hot; we went to drown our thirst in the ABM Sports Bar next to WMD Books. Drinks were on me and I paid with what little was left from my peace dividend.