Work in Progress - Wilson's Ghost

Thereafter, Wilson's ghost haunted the 20th century : in the Second World War, in which 50 million people were killed; in the Cold War, with its nuclear fear and destructive "proxy" wars; and in the countless post- Cold War conflicts that threaten anarchy, death, and destruction.

We argue that fundamentally, the human race - in particular foreign and defense policy makers of the Great Powers - has not made the prevention of human carnage a central priority.

Beware of the temptation to believe that sustainable peace will be maintained simply by plotting to achieve an alleged "balance of power" without a strong international organization to enforce it.

For President Wilson had convinced many Americans that Armistice Day represented not merely the end of the most devastating war in world history, but also, in the phrase Wilson made famous, "the war to end all war".

"America," said Wilson, "is only the idealistic nation in the world."

Wilson failed the accomplish these objectives. In the end Germany was humiliated and embittered by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which required not only the ceding of vast tracts of land but also the payment of exorbitant reparations to Germany's European enemies.  Wilson's League of Nations, moreover, was rendered nearly irrelevant by America's absence from it, due to Wilson's failure to persuade the U.S Senate to ratify the treaty creating it. During a cross-country speaking tour in the summer of 1919 on behalf of the treaty, Wilson suffered a stroke, from which he never recovered. The Senate would vote down the League shortly thereafter. Thus did his personal tragedy reflect that of his country and his world.

The Moral Imperative - establish as a major goal of the U.S foreign policy, and indeed of foreign policies across the globe the avoidance in this century of the carnage - 160million dead - caused by the conflict in the 20th century

The Multilateral Imperative - recognize that the United States must provide leadership to achieve the objective of reduced carnage but, in doing so, it will not apply its economic, political, or military power unilaterally, other than in the unlikely circumstances of a defense of the continental United States, Hawaii, and Alaska.

Wilson was accused of being a native Idealist

Yet the tragic history of the 20th century that followed strongly suggests that Lloyd George and the other Europeans - self-style "realists" - might with considerable profit have listened more closely to the "idealist" from America.

Wilson believed that until the power to make war was given over in large part to an international body such as the League, there could be no insurance against the kind of miscalculation, paranoia, suspicion, and error-ridden decision making that had led to the First World War.

And only by means of Article X would it become clear that seeking unilateral advantage at the expense of others would not be tolerated and would thus, Wilson believed, be significantly deterred.

Without Article X, he believed, nations and leaders were bound to waver in moments of crisis, when "the will to war is everything," as it had been during the July crisis of 1914. Thus, there mut be no unilateral application of military force by any member of the League of Nations against any other member, under penalty of a guaranteed and proportionate military response by the forces of some or all of the other members.

Milos

By Anis Mojgani

Let us take a sack of spray paint and spray paint over the paintings.
Let dance through Paris;
kiss in the shadow of the Louvre,
crawl inside its windows,
scroll manifesto's over its canvas',
write Morris' code on the sculptures,
roll a sleeping bag on the floors to sleep inside of, tell one another a story by flashlight,
unearth everything from before,
burry each other inside the other,
feed grapes to the ants,
light fireworks in the fists of sleeping kings; kill a monarch.
Break back outside and find a world to do all these same things to;
up and upon against break the bricks, climb over them,
and when the sirens scream,
laugh aloud, hold my hand and run fast.
Run through the streets with me with a bunch of bottles,
a bucket of gasoline,
a mouthful of matches,
a pocket full of paintings and fresh faced batch of policemen to chase the fires we are lighting,
laugh on a shoulder of gold.
And i thought that the museums where cemeteries where the dead paid the wall to hold what we had so that we could walk through what we once were,
And children take their skulls to turn into gardens,
to pluck for forefathers and farther stars,
that on some nights resemble an armless mother praying for her arms to return.
Every tooth that we tear from our jaw to fling at the black gloved riot soldiers as another shadow that we are trying to lose.
Let every giggle be filled with lust; let us laugh this night away and i will fuck you like you were a prayer.
I could save me by having my mouth around you,
and i will hold you afterwards like you were the pulpit and i was the sky,
and this love that danced between that hardness was a telephone line of holiness that those two things spoke through.
Take me into your heart like i was a saint,
and you were a face of forgiveness blooming in a valley destined to sink further.
Be a river with me;
Be the storm;
the bend in the path;
the front porch; the heat in the south;
be a boot full of banjo strings;
a fist full of written songs;
a mouthful of chocolate dust.
When they come to take us,
stab them between the eyes.
Do not take your hand from around mine.
Make a fist with the other, and punch spines like guilds, spit, sweat, kiss them like a grandmother. How will open mouthed terror love filled?
And when they come to cut out hair and ask to hear penance come from inside us,
say with me loud and trembling,
but loud and clear that:
"i have already emptied myself. I kissed regret goodbye, took the hands of another backwards angel, and rode backwards into the rain"
When the hangman of morrow comes to hang the sun in its daily execution say this with me: "'Sarah we are apples, our love is an apple; im unbuttoning my shirt; painting a circle over my heart, please,, just shoot straight."

For Jane

225 days under grass and you know more than I. they have long taken your blood, you are a dry stick in a basket. is this how it works? in this room the hours of love still make shadows. when you left you took almost everything. I kneel in the nights before tigers that will not let me be. what you were will not happen again. the tigers have found me and I do not care.

Moon

I have seen nearly every city from a rooftop without jumping.
I have realized the moon did not have to be full for us to love it.
We are not tragedies
stranded here beneath it.

Broken

“How many murders, suicides, robberies, criminal assaults, holdups, burglaries and deeds of maniacal insanity it causes each year, especially among the young, can only be conjectured...No one knows, when he places a marijuana cigarette to his lips, whether he will become a joyous reveller in a musical heaven, a mad insensate, a calm philosopher, or a murderer...” 

 - Harry Jacob Anslinger

Shake the Dust by Anis Mojgani

This is for the fat girls.

This is for the little brothers.

This is for the school-yard wimps, this is for the childhood bullies who tormented them.

This is for the former prom queen, this is for the milk-crate ball players.

This is for the nighttime cereal eaters and for the retired, elderly Wal-Mart store front door greeters. Shake the dust.

This is for the benches and the people sitting upon them,

for the bus drivers driving a million broken hymns,

for the men who have to hold down three jobs simply to hold up their children,

for the nighttime schoolers and the midnight bike riders who are trying to fly. Shake the dust.

This is for the two-year-olds who cannot be understood because they speak half-English and half-god. Shake the dust.

For the girls with the brothers who are going crazy,

for those gym class wall flowers and the twelve-year-olds afraid of taking public showers,

for the kid who's always late to class because he forgets the combination to his lockers,

for the girl who loves somebody else. Shake the dust.

This is for the hard men, the hard men who want to love but know that is won't come.

For the ones who are forgotten, the ones the amendments do not stand up for.

For the ones who are told to speak only when you are spoken to and then are never spoken to. Speak every time you stand so you do not forget yourself.

Do not let a moment go by that doesn't remind you that your heart beats 900 times a day and that there are enough gallons of blood to make you an ocean.

Do not settle for letting these waves settle and the dust to collect in your veins.

This is for the celibate pedophile who keeps on struggling,

for the poetry teachers and for the people who go on vacations alone.

For the sweat that drips off of Mick Jaggers' singing lips and for the shaking skirt on Tina Turner's shaking hips, for the heavens and for the hells through which Tina has lived.

This is for the tired and for the dreamers and for those families who'll never be like the Cleavers with perfectly made dinners and sons like Wally and the Beaver.

This is for the biggots,

this is for the sexists,

this is for the killers.

This is for the big house, pen-sentenced cats becoming redeemers and for the springtime that always shows up after the winters.

This? This is for you.

Make sure that by the time fisherman returns you are gone.

Because just like the days, I burn both ends and every time I write, every time I open my eyes I am cutting out a part of myself to give to you.

So shake the dust and take me with you when you do for none of this has never been for me.

All that pushes and pulls, pushes and pulls for you.

So grab this world by its clothespins and shake it out again and again and jump on top and take it for a spin and when you hop off shake it again for this is yours.

Make my words worth it, make this not just another poem that I write, not just another poem like just another night that sits heavy above us all.

Walk into it, breathe it in, let is crash through the halls of your arms at the millions of years of millions of poets coursing like blood pumping and pushing making you live, shaking the dust.

So when the world knocks at your front door, clutch the knob and open on up, running forward into its widespread greeting arms with your hands before you, fingertips trembling though they may be.

Still

Still, courage, my friend.
Still, all is not lost and you are not yet done.
Still, there are fires to burn in the darkness and light to cast amongst the shadows.
Still, there are moments that must be taken, fighting and spitting to the ground.
Still, nothing has killed us yet.
Still, the sky smiles on the brave.
Still, have the strength to try and hold the sun in the palm of your hand, once more.
Still, ever burning.
Still, the most beautiful things come from beneath the ground.
Still, the light is cast from the darkest of places.
Still, we labour on under the cover of stars.
Still, we know the truth rides high in our chests.
Still, the world has yet to end, no matter how hard any of us try.
Still.
Until we are still