As The World Burns.

As The World Burns

Ken Waldman

Ridgeway Press

PO Box 120, Roseville, MI 48066

1564391299 $14.00 www.kenwaldman.com/astheworldburns.htm

Poets have been commenting on political issues and personalities since the dawn of recorded time. You can often say something in carefully crafted lyric prose or poetic verse that will 'get the message through' where no amount of speech-making or political pontificating will succeed. Few will doubt the impact that George Bush, as the 43rd American President, has had in generating an over abundance of political dialogue, demagoguery, disputation, and debate. Strongly recommended reading in this current political season--and with two more years to go in his presidency--"As The World Burns" is a collection of 64 poems by Ken Waldman, 41 of them are in the 'voice' of President Bush, the other 23 are sonnets serving up political commentary and indictment on Bush and his political policies. "Abu Ghraib: What could have been more incriminating?/Photos of naked men flanked by snarling/dogs. Blindfolded Iraqi underlings,/hands protecting genitalia, waiting/for the guards to finish the debating/and get on with the session. Breathtaking/to imagine. And what about the egging/of the culture, the forced masturbating,/other big indignities we can't yet/document? Someone with a camera let/click that one first shot, capture a moment./We're liberators, says the president,/ignoring the disconnect. We're guilty,/I say of humiliating a species.