Against the Bombing of Iran: Much Closer - Poetry by Dee Allen
On June 22, 2025 (GMT+3:30) the Trump Administration utilized the United States Air Force and Navy to attack three Iranian nuclear facilities in an operation called "Midnight Hammer". Trump gave a short address after this strike at 10 pm EST (2:00 am GMT). Immediately after the televised statement, Trump posted on Truth Social in all caps saying that "Any retaliation by Iran against the United States of America will be met with force far greater than what was witnessed tonight."
In response to this operation, The Catalyst launched a flash submission campaign against the bombing of Iran and destruction of the SWANA region at large by the United States to be published on July 4th. This publication day deliberately coincides with the day the United States celebrates Independence Day—a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The included work in this campaign questions and disrupts the ideology of American Exceptionalism at the expense of Black and Brown lives globally.
No one is free until all of us are free.
Much Closer
Are we to the bone-chilling
Prospect of mass blood-letting
That could've been avoided.
The presidency had been itching
For conflict for some time,
Like a common bully
Prowling the school-yard,
Intent on visiting
Their terror on the small, weak and powerless—
They're on their way out
Anyway and this crew
Needed one
Last tough guy
Vainglory before
The Oval Office door
Swings open for exit—
Inching by minutes
Much closer
Is the nightmare-inducing
Prospect of watching uniformed
Youth, Black, White, Brown,
All working-class, led around
By middle-aged, trash-talking
Father figure with higher rank,
Deployed into the chaos.
First in the carrier plane,
First at the front,
First to fight
Their Middle Eastern selves,
First to drop
Dead in the desert sand once again—
Bleach blonde Hollywood actress
Rose McGowan was right
Responding to her instincts,
Responding to imminent horror with tweets
The first time around [ the press wanted that ].
Football hero-turned-free agent
Colin Kaepernick was right
Responding to history's harsh lessons,
Responding to latent idiocy with tweets The
whole time around [ no back-pedalling ].
Americans and Iranians
Share the worry
Over fresh new
Glimpse into Hell:
Flying military drone
Guided by lasers
Sanctioned by U.S.
Political recklessness
Air-to-ground missile
Assassination
Of a general
Far from an angel
Outside Baghdad Airport
Rang in the new year 2020
On a fatal note.
Another recent American president— An installed puppet, really—
Demonstrated his power on an Islamic Country the same way,
Except when he did it,
The idiot wasn't teaching
A dog's tail
How to wag
Its host body
In the face
Of impeachment hearings on
Crimes against humanity,
One stacked on top of others.
America the powerful fears the absolute
worst, Iran the indignant cries for revenge
In these days
Inching much closer to total war.
Written: 1.28.2020.
Dee Allen is an African-Italian performance poet based in Oakland, California. Active on creative writing & Spoken Word since the early 1990s. Author of 10 books--Boneyard, Unwritten Law, Stormwater, Skeletal Black, Elohi Unitsi, Rusty Gallows: Passages Against Hate, Plans, Crimson Stain, Discovery and his newest, The Mansion--and 81 anthology appearances under his figurative belt so far.