Fresno Love Poems: To Yvette With Love

To Yvette With Love

You set the alarm clock for dawn
I didn't want to get up
floating on your love
but you said your kids
wouldn't understand
if they got up and found me
in your waterbed
you said they looked at you funny last night
when you put your feet in my lap
where have I been all these months
why didn't I write or call
If I think so much about you, you say.
and what could I say
Baby, you know how life is
just trying to survive
you sure are presumptuous of me
coming here
ain't called or nothing in months
But
after the rum  popcorn
after the weed
after the scoulding and holding
we retired
to her waterbed
her softeness
screams
moans
waterbed sloushing in the night
we floated as she told me
how good I felt
inside of my stuff in her stuff
she said
stay in me forever
and I said
whispering in her ear
kissing her lobes
I said
I want to stay
I want to stay
forever.......

Fresno Poems: "Winter in the Valley"

Birds zig zag
black earth
no one for third picking tomatoes
birds eat them
horses graze peacefully
November sun
grapes cut
stillness on vines
homeless sleep between rows
some places grapes grow no more
new homes for escaping urbane
where will fruit grow?
Chile Mexico Peru?
Fire burns pile of aging roots
smoke ascends
signaling death
giving life to next crop.
--Marvin X

from Land of My Daughters, poems, Marvin X,
Black Bird Press, 2002.

Fresno Poems: "My son walks in silence"*

My son walks in silence
no noise in his world
I disturb his sleep with a piss
rattled his cage
he smiles rarely
or laughs
sleeps all day
Watches Simpsons
used to travel to Jerusalem
Damascus
study in Egypt
vacation in Brazil
Romance in Japan
now he walks in silence
used to read New York Times
hates books now
friends disappeared
his girlfriend the silent air
I am a fly
invading his world
he wants me silent
come see him again
sometime next year.
--Marvin X
from Love and War, poems, Marvin X, Black Bird Press, 1995.
* Son suffered manic depression. Took his life, 2002 (RIP).

Insider Attacks Shape Afghan War

Insider Attacks in Afghanistan Shape the Late Stages of a War

Video Image via Site Monitoring Service

Mahmood is shown being welcomed by the Taliban after he opened fire on American trainers in Kunar Province.

Musadeq Sadeq/Associated Press

Guards at police headquarters in Kabul after an American contractor was killed by an Afghan policewoman on Dec. 24.

The soldier, named simply Mahmood, 22, said that in May he told the insurgents of his plan to shoot Americans the next time they visited the outpost where he was based in northeastern Afghanistan. He asked the Taliban to take him in if he escaped.

The Taliban veterans he contacted were skeptical. Despite their public insistence that they employ vast ranks of infiltrators within the Afghan Army and the police, they acknowledged that many of the insider attacks they take credit for start as offers by angry young men like Mahmood. They had seen many fail, or lose their nerve before even starting, and they figured that Mahmood, too, would prove more talk than action or would die in the attempt.

“Even the Taliban didn’t think I would be able to do this,” Mr. Mahmood said in an interview.

He proved them wrong days later, on the morning of May 11, when he opened fire on American trainers who had gone to the outpost in the mountains of Kunar Province. One American was killed and two others were wounded. Mahmood escaped in the ensuing confusion, and he remains free in Kunar after the Taliban welcomed him into their ranks.

It was, he said, his “proudest day.”

Such insider attacks, by Afghan security forces on their Western allies, became “the signature violence of 2012,” in the words of one former American official. The surge in attacks has provided the clearest sign yet that Afghan resentment of foreigners is becoming unmanageable, and American officials have expressed worries about its disruptive effects on the training mission that is the core of the American withdrawal plan for 2014.

“It’s a game changer on all levels,” said First Sgt. Joseph Hissong, an American whohelped fight off an insider attack by Afghan soldiers that left two men in his unit dead.

Cultural clashes have contributed to some of the insider attacks, with Afghan soldiers and police officers becoming enraged by what they see as rude and abusive behavior by Americans close to them. In some cases, the abusive or corrupt behavior of Afghan officers prompts the killer to go after Americans, who are seen as backing the local commanders. On rare occasions, like the killing of an American contractor by an Afghan policewomanlate last month, there seems to be no logical explanation.

But behind it all, many senior coalition and Afghan officials are now concluding that after nearly 12 years of war, the view of foreigners held by many Afghans has come to mirror that of the Taliban. Hope has turned into hatred, and some will find a reason to act on those feelings.

“A great percentage of the insider attacks have the enemy narrative — the narrative that the infidels have to be driven out — somewhere inside of them, but they aren’t directed by the enemy,” said a senior coalition officer, who asked not to be identified because of Afghan and American sensitivities about the attacks.

The result is that, although the Taliban have successfully infiltrated the security forces before, they do not always have to. Soldiers and police officers will instead go to them, as was the case with Mr. Mahmood, who offered a glimpse of the thinking behind the violence in one of the few interviews conducted with Afghans who have committed insider attacks.

“I have intimate friends in the army who have the same opinion as I do,” Mr. Mahmood said. “We used to sit and share our hearts’ tales.”

But he said he did not tell any of his compatriots of his plan to shoot Americans, fearing that it could leak out and derail his attack. The interviews with Mr. Mahmood and his Taliban contacts were conducted in recent weeks by telephone and through written responses to questions. There are also two videos that show Mr. Mahmood with the Taliban: an insurgent-produced propaganda video available on jihadi Web sites, and an interview conducted by a local journalist in Kunar.

Though Mr. Mahmood at times contradicted himself, falling into stock Taliban commentary about how it had always been his ambition to kill foreigners, much of what he said mirrored the timelines and versions of events provided by Taliban fighters who know him, as well as Afghan officials familiar with his case.

Mr. Mahmood grew up in Tajikan, a small village in the southern province of Helmand. The area around his village remains dominated by the Taliban despite advances against the insurgents made in recent years by American and British troops. Even Afghans from other parts of Helmand are hesitant to 

travel to Tajikan for fear of the Taliban.

Col. Khudaidad, an Afghan officer who runs the Afghan National Army’s recruitment center in Helmand, said Mr. Mahmood enlisted about four years ago. His story, up to that point, would be familiar to many Americans: He was a poor boy from a family of eight who worked sweeping up in a tailor shop and was looking for a better life. The army offered steady pay, reading and writing lessons, and a chance to see something beyond the mud hovels in which he was born and raised.

“He barely had a beard,” recalled Colonel Khudaidad, who also uses only one name, in an interview. “He looked so innocent that you wouldn’t believe what he did if you only saw him then.”

Mr. Mahmood says he was anything but an innocent. He grew up being told that Americans, Britons and Jews “are the enemies of our country and our religion,” he said.

But until May, he worked and fought alongside foreigners without incident. The change came in the Ghaziabad District of Kunar, where he ended up after the start of 2012, he said.

The area is thick with Taliban, along with Islamists from Pakistan. Many residents sympathized with the insurgents and often complained to Afghan soldiers about the abuses committed by Americans and the failure of Afghan soldiers to control much of anything beyond the perimeter of their own outpost, Mr. Mahmood said. The Taliban, they glorified.

Listening to villagers, Mr. Mahmood became convinced that the foreigners had killed too many Afghans and insulted the Prophet Muhammad too many times. He wanted to be driving them out, not helping them stay. The villagers’ stories “strengthened my desire to kill Americans with my own fingers,” he said.

He contacted the Taliban through a local sympathizer. He did not want help — he only asked the insurgents “not to shoot me” if he managed to escape after attacking the Americans, which he told them would happen in a few days.

He was on guard duty when American soldiers arrived at the outpost on May 11. He waited for a few of them to shed their body armor and put down their weapons, and then he opened fire. (New regulations require American trainers to keep their armor on and weapons at hand when visiting Afghan bases.)

The Afghan and American soldiers initially thought the attack was coming from the outside. They “didn’t even think that someone within the Afghan Army might have opened fire on Americans,” he said. “I took advantage of this confusion and fled.”

He claimed to have hit six Americans. “I don’t know how many were killed, though I hope all were,” he said. The coalition said one soldier was killed and two were wounded.

The Taliban welcomed him as a hero. He was given the title “ghazi,” an honorific for someone who helps drive off non-Muslim invaders. “They let me keep the same rifle I used to kill Americans.”

In August, the Taliban featured Mr. Mahmood in a propaganda video, calling him “Ghazi of Ghaziabad.” The video shows Mr. Mahmood, smiling broadly, being draped with garlands and showered with praise from local elders, Taliban fighters and cheering crowds of men and boys.

The following month, the American-led military coalition announced that it had killed Mr. Mahmood in an airstrike. The coalition now says it was mistaken and that Mr. Mahmood is still with the Taliban in Kunar.

Villagers and officials in Helmand backed up that account, saying Mr. Mahmood had been in touch with relatives since the report of his death. Mr. Mahmood said he spoke only to his mother, and that “she was happy.”

Sangar Rahimi and Jawad Sukhanyar contributed reporting from Kabul, and an employee of The New York Times from Asadabad.

The Fresno Poems: "She So Sweet When She Sleep"

Marvin X
photo Kamau Amen Ra





for PY

She so sweet when she sleep
love looking at her
covers over head
won't let me in bed
except to put her to sleep
then
got to leave
sleep on couch
baby can grouch
if she don't get her sleep
insomnia nervous workaholic
trying to get it for self
miss independent
like ain't we all
but let her sleep
a terror awake
madness
I can't take
but our moment of tenderness
tongue on breasts
down her valley of the Nile
she works me too
yeah
so sweet
let baby sleep
let baby sleep
so sweet
so sweet.
--Marvin X
1/4/95

from Love and War, poems, Marvin X, Black Bird Press, 1995.

The Fresno Poems: "I Will Go into the City"

The following poem will resound as long and as deeply as any love poem ever written by anyone: Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonja Sanchez, Maya et al.
--Fahizah Alim

I Will Go into the City

for S.J.

I will go into the city

I will find work

I will find work

I will remember you, country woman

I will not forget you

Your laugh, your arguments

In order to learn

It is your way, let it be

How can I forget your lips

Your enchanting smile

I will not forget

The night we walked in the rain

Because it was free and we were free

For once we agree

The best of life is free

I will go into the city

I will find work

But you will be with me, country woman

When those city woman come to devour me

With their sweet perfume

You will be there

Your spirit will protect me

I will never forget

How we sipped $1.00 margaritas

In the Mexican café in Chinatown

Our ride to the lake

Our picnic on the hill

The ranger spotted us with his binoculars

We did not care

We were filled

With the holy spirit of love

How can I forget

Hours in bed

We became children

Of the love spirit

Days, nights, mornings

Became one moment

Man and woman became one

Discovered their missing self

Eternal self

Self of love

Self of joy

Self of happiness realized

I will go into the city

I will find work

I will not forget you, country woman

I will return to claim you

In the name of love

I will claim you

Because you are woman

I will claim you

Because you are feeling and spirit

I will claim you

Because you are mind and beauty

I will claim you

Because you have given yourself to me so totally

I will claim you

In the name of Allah

I will claim you

For the glory of Allah

I will claim you.

--Marvin X

From Selected Poems, Marvin X, Black Bird Press, 1979.

The Fresno Poems: "Mama's Love"

photo Ken Johnson

Mama taught love
love
each other
love
everyone
no matter
what color
love
brothers
sisters
love
Mama taught
Her Christian Science made us know "the truth"
truth is
ain't no love like Mama's love
Nietzsche said Mother Love turns to smother love
so we suffocated
Mama drowned us in her love
all in our bizness
especially her six daughters
classic matriarch
I don't like none of them nigguhs you girls wit
ain't none of them nigguhs shit
Mama
keep out of other people's business
no way jose
love was her business
then Mama died
all the love she tried
to build between us siblings
crumbled
so much crust of bread
dust
sand
love became hate
or was it hate all the time
just waiting for Mama to leave room
so we could call each other dirty hoes
bitches
punk motherfuckers
ass holes.
Did we love
for love
or love for Mama
love is eternal
Mama ephemeral
we loved for Mama
Mama alone
so loved turned to hate
hate to violence
violence to silence
we don't talk
don't call
don't write
meet at funerals only
if then.
and don't talk then
avoid the eyes
revealing truth we want so hard
to deny
that
in fact
in deed
we do
love.

from Love and War, poems, Marvin X, Black Bird Press, Berkeley, 1995.