Arresting Karl Rove

* Pink Police, photo by SB

It’s All Made Up

It was to be a citizen’s arrest
in the indoor courtyard of the Renaissance Hotel
in North Austin, Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan leading
protesters to the doorway of the dining hall
where hot dog Republicans were paying big bucks
to dine with a war criminal, Karl Rove,
a public servant guilty of treason,
the man they call "Bush’s Brain."

Naturally, Austin being a sane town —
except for the local roundhouse
for the mentally infirm and morally bankrupt
otherwise known as the State Capital— naturally
we formed a citizen’s committee to arrest Karl Rove.
It was the least we could do.

The Pink Police out frowned Rove’s Blackguard,
and the APD. Cindy Sheehan and friends
from Camp Casey led a Code Pink line
to the dining hall doors, which were (surprise) locked.

We chanted You dine, and people die.

They knew we were there.
At least I think they did because around us
in the courtyard, a three story
(Pink) banner (A Pink Slip — with ruffles)
saying: Rove v Truth: No Contest
was unfurled by protesters chanting:
Arrest Karl Rove
Rove Lies People Die.
There were resounding cheers
when the banner dropped from
different places just ahead
of hotel security.

Protesters were shouting, milling about,
carrying signs.

A pink poster that said,
Karl Rove: MisInformer repeatedly
travelled up and then down
the glass elevator.

So they had to know we were there —
the nice Republicans who stood in line,
wearing cocktail dresses and suits, cowboy hats,
diamonds. They had to know we were there.

But to look at them, you’d swear they didn’t see us.
No one made eye contact. I roamed near their line
taking pictures and they didn’t seem to notice.

In the courtyard, I heard an elderly lady say
to another elderly lady and two portly gentlemen —
"It’s a fake," you know. "It’s not true."

I moved closer, and leaned toward the sofa
where she and her friends were sitting.
People were chanting:
Tis the season to arrest Karl Rove for treason.

"What’s fake?" I said. She pointed to the banner.
"The banner is a fake?"I said. "It’s a real banner,
Code Pink made it. Look, you can see it's real."

"It’s all made up," she said, waving vaguely at the scene.

"Made up?" I said. "Made up? Cindy Sheehan’s son Casey
was killed in Iraq because of lies Karl Rove and George Bush
told to the American People, to the world."

She said, "I remember the sixties.
These kids are just having fun."

"Fun?
These are families whose sons and daughters
have died in Iraq. Fun?"

"It’s all made up," she said, and moved off
to dinner behind closed doors, in front of which
a woman in pink was thrown to the floor, face down,
hands cuffed behind her, carried out —
more fun, certainly than having a child murdered
by the government.

A solemn parade of "revelers" followed her out.

©Susan Bright, 2006


Susan Bright is the author of nineteen books of poetry. She is the editor of Plain View Press which since 1975 has published one-hundred-and-fifty books. Her work as a poet, publisher, activist and educator has taken her all over the United States and abroad. Her most recent book, The Layers of Our Seeing, is a collection of poetry, photographs and essays about peace done in collaboration with photographer Alan Pogue and Middle Eastern journalist, Muna Hamzeh.

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