Haifa, Israel, a Saturday before the Second Gulf War
The Iraq War, the Shock and Awe War, the war with embedded journalists traveling in
tanks across dusty deserts the smart way with no bulky supply lines following them
And they arrived and it quickly became apparent the supply line was a good invention

The beach is filled with people, enjoying their last few days of peace
People color the beach a kind of brown, moving brown, like ants wandering around a hill the entire beach is their hill right now in that moment a respite of the stress to come
Funny how War could be on some kind of timeline, with everyone waiting for it
like a Super Bowl game, or the second coming or a tornado or flood or nuclear bomb
Breathe this fresh air now, for tomorrow will find you smothered in a bomb shelter
crammed into small spaces with strangers even, or people you don't like, and screaming children

Your plane was due to leave for Florida the next day, but there was no seat for me.
At first that bothered you, that we had no money for me to go anywhere, only you
but now you took any chance you got to leave this place that was our new home
"We're making cookies," a couple said who we ran into down there.  
If there's an air raid, you can stay with us they said to me.  
And I imagined the pleasant aroma of butter
and sweet and nuts filling a windowless room with a Hebrew TV station crackling quickly in a language I still couldn't keep up with while we munched until we were like full balloons
in a land with the bus driver turning up the news updates on the radio every hour really loud so everyone could hear them, day in and day out, because this was part of life here. And most of what I could follow after so many hours of study was that most words at the end of a sentence on the news ended with -eeem.  Usually in threes, -eem, -eeem, -eem, which is maculine plural and sometimes there was MemShalah, which is Prime Minister.

It was your most noble hour, coming shortly after you rampaging up and down the hallways
of our cement apartment building, just a box but a nice one with a view of Haifa Bay saying Saddam does too have a bomb, and you just wait when the scuds start falling. You just wait.
But you weren't waiting.  You were going home.
And no I didn't believe Saddam had a bomb although I've never met anyone who agreed with me since then and that is getting to be a long time ago.  
Even though there were Freedom Fries now and a ban on French wine and I don't particularly like the French in many ways, still I believed them and Mahomood El Baradei
because he was a very smart man except American don't believe there can be smart, effective individuals and people working very hard in places filled with dust and ignorance and lacking
so many comforts and conveniences
And how could you check a whole country anyway?  
With connections, by being an insider and by being very clever and that's what I thought sitting in the living room watching CNN International being piped for free into our living room.
And you were terrified and you left in a sweat and a day or so later the War began

and I watched the War on CNN International in our living room after you were gone, and it was just mass destruction from great heights like someone's ridiculous plan of Urban Renewal from way too high up and I felt sorry for all the
people who would soon be called "collateral damage" and I felt ill at our Generals bragging about this mayhem, this obscene, idiotic pounding of a city without intelligence or sensitivity or perceptions and I felt no shock and awe, but only horror and sadness
and I, by myself, an American living in Israel, who now had dual citizenship of course,
you see, but Americans are never dual, we always leave.  We are only American.

I saw my country as something angry, and violent and dumb and ugly
And you waited in Florida for the WMD, and I watched the story unfold
and there were still no WMD by the time you got back and the Patriot missiles were lowered from their mountain top heights.  And there were still no WMD when paper plans for a bomb were unearthed underneath rose bushes in a scientist's back yard and I felt sorry for the rose bushes
and hoped they were re-planted.
And like my country, you slipped down a notch in my eyes,
Running away from nothing telling me there was danger and leaving me
when it was only you who believed I might die.  Only You.

I remember when MTV was in its prime,
A new voice to represent the new boom
Babies growing up since the 80s
Louder still through the troubling decades
(Maxed out credit no head room)
After —the punks in nirvana and rapping clergy
It was the only channel on
Youthful rebel yell —honest news
I remember it pretty well
Shaping us generation x y and Personal Jesus
New wave good bye to when
Childhood then without pain of malnourished
Africa or nukes threatening our
Cruel summers
Were we happier then?
So what happens to the music
Rockstars rip van wrinkle
Geriatric hall of fame

(No one lives forever
Reruns with the ****** & mr. Ed
Now that old neighbor’s dead)

Television
Nowadays
Seem more gangster
School shootings terrorists
On the train, kamikaze planes,
It’s all the same ole
Bling kablam oh bits
******* please
Redirecting our attention
To WMD
***
Where the hells are we?

I remember back then
On MTV —Nicki Minaj says
Between the hysterics of police brutality
She said Happiness is living your life
Without struggle,
That stuck with me
Because we all watch the tube
We all search for meaning
Sadly defining what happiness
May look like
Real World and paradoxical reality
TV
Para socially defunct
Clarity
Conditioned to continuously
Stay tuned
Brief message of empty
Hypnosis a pure form of business
Wall Street
Boulevard of broken dreams
I want my

Happy. What do I mean
To be?
Life ***** lately
The human condition
Talking too much
Refusing to see
No more talking heads too much
Bla bla *******
I want my
MTV . Happy .
My generation
We are the world
freedom And yes, Peace.

Man kindly as one
Symphony
And street, a melting ***
Of diversity

I remember the music
The future
I had hope to see
Behind the shades
Circa 80s 90s
(Fossils)
What time is it then?
When will we
Begin
Again

Don’t worry be happy
Run Forest run!