Today's paper reports
that The Garden of Eden has been looted

Near the Iranian border
Qurna, Iraq's promo rep
proclaims it to be
the actual, true and historic site
of that perfect Garden

Its one star luxury hotel
has been completely cleaned by thieves
and seized by fundamentalists

Maybe Adam and Eve
Cain and Able
the Serpent and God
once booked rooms
or lived nearby

The Garden's tree's are war
devastated and collapsing
the tree of life is dead
the tree of knowledge gone mad

With stinking sewage piling up
and poison water flowing
cholera awaits in the Garden of Eden

it is an irresistible story
of Rummy's Rotten Republic
written of course
as if inevitable impersonal and certainly
of no moral responsibility
to NY Times readers

© 2003 - Stew Albert