Bastard

“Today you don’t have to feel like a bastard to be one.”

Michael Neumann

About Saddam they are never wrong, The Oil Meisters. He is a bastard, Given how he gassed his own people While they were eating, opening a window Or just walking dully along; how He sleeps his heavy-lidded sleep While his henchmen round up victims For slow suffocation in the back Alleys of Takrit. He is a bastard, Given how he kills to stay in power; how He’s been starving children who Did not especially want it to happen; how He’s been stealing elections; how He’s been grooming his sons for Succession. He is a bastard, Given how he’s grown rich, while The working poor get poorer, Their children dying sick in one-night Cheap hotels. He is a bastard, Given how he’s been building Weapons of mass destruction, Each so truly awesome, they never Come up for inspection. He is a bastard, Given how he hides in bunkers, And has outfoxed, outlasted all of us.

? M. SHAHID ALAM

M. SHAHID ALAM teaches economics at Northeastern University. His recent book, Poverty from the Wealth of Nations, was published by Palgrave (2000). He can be reached at: m.alam@neu.edu