Waiting

By Andrew Rihn

One man sits in his house.

If someone wants to try to break in and steal my home from me
I would have to shoot that person.

He holds tight his pistol.

Another man sits waiting.

Someone has stolen the house of my family. If I want it back
I would have to shoot that person.

He holds tight his pistol.

A peackeeper walks in.

If anyone wants to disturb this peace I have brought with me,
I would have to shoot that person.

He holds tight his pistol.

I protested President Bush on Ernesto Cardenal’s 80 th birthday. In the snowdrifts of Washington DC, I was baptized to the international movement. I took off my shirt and bare-chested we wrote “Global Justice Now” in bold black letter across my stomach. It was easy to forget the cold. Just knowing that a few miles away there was this mass murderer, this demagogue, this piece of human garbage being inaugurated as a leader in my name, it surged my body with enough bile, enough purely raw, physical resistance to go seemingly forever. But it’s not over. Now we must give everything we have. The world can’t wait.

submitted February 2006