Banking on Saddam?

Statues demolished by bulldozers
portraits rendered in bullet holes
U.S. rulers in Iraq print interim dinars
bearing the purple-and-yellow
plundered face of Saddam Hussein

Fearing counterfeit Saddams
nobody wants to touch the inherently
worthless declarations of paper
anarchy face value reminders
wearing Saddam’s smart jacket and tie

Barbed-wire barricades flanked by soldiers
fueling hysteria across the monopoly board
10,000-dinar notes are legal tenderizers
gyrating on postwar influx of desperation
rendered into dinars to purchase dollars -

though I wouldn’t bank on it.

HAMMOND GUTHRIE is the author of AsEverWas: Memoirs of a Beat Survivor. He is the editor of the great online journal The 3rd Page. He can be reached at: writenow@spiritone.com

© 2003– HAMMOND GUTHRIE