Album Notes

This is was written in late September, 2001 by John O'Connor, a poet and labor organizer living in New York City.

My City

What if life were long
and eternity short?

In my city innocent people
are killed by a thunderous
terror from above. Vendors
in the street are pummeled
by rubble. Men and women
on their way to work are greeted
with the anonymous hatred
of those they have never met.
Janitors, businessmen, clerks,
cooks, construction workers, the rescue
workers who risk all to help these.
My beloved city showered with death.

We cry up and ask, in the midst
of the screams of loved ones,
why do they hate us so?
Why do they do this to our city,
to our lives?
My stomach turns in on itself.
The people I love, burning, dissolving,
dying. The city I love, attacked
from above. My brothers in agony.
My sisters. Children. Mothers. Dead.
Who would do this?
Why my beautiful city?
How do we survive this
but by breathing the city's name
over and over like a mantra, a prayer?
Baghdad, Baghdad, Baghdad.

This recording is dedicated to the good people of Afghanistan, who, as I write, are being indiscrinately slaughtered by the world's biggest terrorist organization, known as the United States Air Force.

Recorded live at Caffe Lena, Saratoga Springs, NY on September 29th, and at Hill & Valley Studio, Valley Falls, NY, on October 1st, 2001. Engineered, mixed and mastered by Bob Noble -- bobnoble@iname.com.

We are all children of Jerusalem