D. ALEXANDER HOLIDAY
 Born in New York City, raised in foster care, and stricken with Gillian Barré Syndrome(or Ascending Paralysis) at the age of ten, the author attended Bernard M.Baruch College and The State University of New York at Albany, receiving both a Bachelor and a Master of Arts degree from Albany University. He is the recipient of an achievement award from Baruch College and the Spellman Award from Albany University. He has published in various publications, among them The Amherst Society and A & U Magazine. He has four chap books of poetry, Notes to Porshé, Tales From This Black Heart, a collaborative work, The Voices in My Head, with fifteen area poets and I Use To Fall Down. He has published essays on ERIC,the research database. He has read on radio, for Crystal Brown's "Reading for the Blind" program, has been on radio for Kym Fleming's RPI program, and has done a television appearance for Public Television. He is the author of Letters to Osama: Old and New Musings on Foreign and Domestic Terrorism…and Other Matters and I Use To Fall Down: 50 + 25 + 25 Selected Poems.
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HOW'S YOUR INVASION GOING
Messrs Bush, Blair, Powell, and Rumsfeld
how’s your invasion going
on the heels of the assassination
of Martin King, a black man who stood for peace,
and shot down for asking America
to hold to it’s principles of equality and fairness,
how’s your invasion of an Arab nation going
How’s your invasion going
messrs Bush, Blair, Powell and Rumsfeld,
how’s the destruction of the oldest civilization,
belonging to black people, going, how’s your
campaign to erase history and conquer oil going
How’s your invasion going,
where’s the weapons of mass destruction Mr. Bush,
or have you found all the al-Qaeda warriors
hiding in the country Mr. Powell, or have you been able
to replace the old regime with one to your liking Mr. Blair,
have you freed any of the Iraqi people, Mr. Rumsfeld
what about the ones you murdered, the women,
the children, the elderly too frail to get out of the
way of your smart bombs
how have your baby killers performed
are all of the people freer, now
Mr. Powell, how’s it feel to be a token
in this administration’s mongering to
destroy affirmative action with the one hand, in America,
while conquering colored nations with the other
How’s your invasion going
How’s your invasion going,
messrs Bush and Blair,
from Camp David where you
count up and divide the booty,
chuckling like drunken children
as you divvy up the spoils of victory
How’s your invasion going,
messrs Bush, Blair, Powell, and Rumsfeld,
this occupation cloaked as an invasion
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IT IS A WONDER
for Speaker Pelosi
Today,
I am going to write
your poem,
because I saw you
on Today,
looking dignified
and speaking the words
that many in the world
need to hear
but only a few have
dared you to say,
speaking words of peace
to nations deemed evil
by this president and other
old broken-down evil men
How dare you speak peace
when the men love their wars
and death and carnage and destruction,
loving the killing
and hating the peacemonger,
King Bush wanting his coffers
filled to overflowing
with enough ransom to
make his wars last forever,
summoning you to kneel before
him and do his bidding
or be beheaded
It is a wonder
that upon your return
to the kingdom
you were not met by knights,
chained and molested,
dragged off to a dungeon
beneath the castle
made to sign a document
of treason to the realm
and then
beaten to death
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WHEN I TALKED TO YOU LAST
For Jasan
When I talked to you last
there were things left unsaid
things you were holding back from saying
things you didn’t want me to hear
so rather than say these things
you terminate the conversation
you stay aloof, mysterious
just some more of men behaving badly
leaving things unsaid
but saying other things to end potential
friendships or love interests
no intimacies here, no getting close
no sharing of secrets
secret dreams
secret ambitions
secret loses
secret loves
secret illnesses
this is why men go to war
because they will not talk to one another
they will not tell their secrets to each other
they will not expose hearts and souls
and talk of their pain
their wants
their needs
Is the secret so painful, so terrible, so precious
that no one must ever have it
that you would rather die, maim, kill, destroy
push away, abandon another than let them share in the secret
the telling must be better than the not telling
a better medicine than
shame
knives
guns
death
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