May is the month to be immortal, to love
The scent of blossoms, to love
All that makes the landscape new
As it grows. That would be mostly you.
I cannot be immortal for another moment
Unless I acknowledge Memorial Day—
(The sun is making its merry way)
The day we remember every sorrow is dead.
I need to sink into sweet flowers now.
To lose a still growing child
Is the worst thing. This makes me wild.
I want to write an ode. Does the hangman know how?
As different as the living from the dead
Is the soldier who defends his country from the poet who dreams on a cloud.
Memorial Day is not for poets,
But poets will spit their anti-war poems
Today, to other poets. Society starts when a poem is read out loud.
Not a soldier, but an MFA instructor,
Told me Keats doesn’t matter.
But I, an historian, am mad as a hatter.
So Keats does matter.
Poets will kill poets and soldiers will kill soldiers.
The feeble conscience of the old scholar stirs.
I figured it out. The answer is found
In studying Iran. Before you fight, study.
The UK is still the British Empire, more now by proxy.
When the Empire retreated, it set fires.
Who knows what Desdemona desires?
A U.S. president apologized in Cairo in 2009,
Feeding the fake narrative that the Iran coup
Of 1953 was American. They might as well blame you.
Did everything change in 1952?
I don’t know. I’m just guessing at these things.
My father, getting his Master’s in history, was reading Beard,
Who said the Founding Fathers were just money grubbers.
Sex was everywhere. Things were getting weird.
Intel agencies and universities changed. Was it a plan?
Intellectuals became self-loathing. Deep America hating began.
After World War Two, the US kicked Stalin out of northern Iran.
The US and Iran were friends. Now the US is the “Great Satan.”
And Britain and Iran are practically sisters. Qui?
US oil fueled Europe’s two World Wars; not the US, the UK
Needed Iran’s oil—when Iran threatened to take it all away,
Churchill begged Truman for help, but Truman said no. The CIA
Agent was bewildered by the MI6 agent—
The Muslim-loving, Marxist-loving, self-loathing gay.
Churchill had better luck with the next US president, Ike:
There was something Soviet about Mosaddegh he didn’t like.
In Iran, the priests, the middle class, the military, too,
Were sick of Mossadegh; the Shah fired him. The “American coup”
Was an Anglo/Iranian one; making the US look bad
In 1953 set up 1979. Khomeini was a known terrorist
In Iran from the early 50s. The priest, Khomeini, took on the Shah in 1963,
When the Shah pushed for women’s rights. “You Don’t Own Me”
Sang Lesley Gore in America. La la la. Khomeini was exiled.
Jimmy Carter (Obama I) let Khomeini in from France in 1979,
When the Beatles had been replaced by Wings. Pol Pot.
By 1979 the world had really started to rot.
I find it hard to read Shakespeare’s Othello—Iago is so good.
This really needs to be understood:
For the last 100 years, the UK has been Iago to the US Othello.
The UK, though playing ally,
Never wanted the US to get too strong
And promote stable, modernizing nations
All over the world—not how the British Empire
Does things. Iran under the Shah
In the 70s, was a modern, US friendly nation.
MI6/CIA ran SAVAK to protect the Shah
But also to make the Shah look ruthless.
When it was time for a switch Khomeini
Made SAVAK look like children.
The Supreme Leader took my dreams away.
To be immortal, I need you. I need May.
I need the Hindu and the Christian.
I will ask the UK how to play the Muslim card.
The Queen remembers India. I’ll arrange a meeting. It won’t be hard.
The spring which never goes away
Is all. Paradise is something paradise makes.
I will have as many children as it takes.
In hot white breezes, the green flower stem shakes.
If this poem seems anti-war,
Pardon me. We’ll take another tour.
The poet, though dying, can change his spots.
We can change, the sweet historian connect the dots.