{"id":1206,"date":"2014-01-08T00:42:50","date_gmt":"2014-01-08T00:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/?p=1206"},"modified":"2014-08-27T02:52:15","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T02:52:15","slug":"green-parrot-writen-by-laura-ann-tull-performed-for-a-benefit-for-emergency-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/?p=1206","title":{"rendered":"GREEN PARROT- Writen By Laura Ann Tull Performed for a Benefit for EMERGENCY USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Performed for EMERGENCY USA<\/a>, I wrote this poem the week I performed it. I was asked to create something by Anna Gilmore who is on Emergency USA’s board for a charity benefit. It was odd. I am not sure how she knew I could do this. Acutally I had performed for VERBALLY LOUD and my subject of choice was often human concerns and interest from CANCER to STUDENT OPRESSION in IRAN. I met Anna at World Fest where she had a booth to explain to attendees what her ortanization does. If you GET a chance, I highly recomment attending WORLD FEST<\/a> in the LAKE BALBOA area of LOS ANGELES. It is held near EARTH DAY and if you are a member of any of the VEGAN groups on MEET up you can often get a discounted ticket. They usually also have a discount if you prove you road the METRO for the day. The event is near the ORANGE LINE. <\/p>\n

I was not the only performer. I had performed in Santa Monica at a poetry reading and met Kevin Patrick<\/a> there who was a spoken word artist of a more urban flavor. I met with Anna and Kevin and read him my work and he fashioned a piece to match mine. I read part of my work, he did what he wrote, and there was also a film about EMERGENCY USA played in between. THis I believe is the LONGEST piece of poetry I have ever written. At the same time it is more of a poetic dialogue of the history of the Land Mind in the use of WAR and why EMERGENCY was CREATED. It is also a call for the world to stop the destructive ways advanced military countries approach conflict and war. <\/p>\n

Green Parrots- by Laura Ann Tull <\/p>\n

Greetings from Kurdistan; Afghanistan; Iraq;
\nAngola; Bosnia; Somalia; Eritrea; Cambodia.
\nOver and over
\nNames, skin color, countries change,
\nBut all read the same. <\/p>\n

A green parrot
\nBright, shiny
\nA winged metal cylinder
\nFour inches long
\nFlutters to land
\nIn little tiny young hands
\nA land mind, personal delivery
\nA war on terrorism
\nEnduring Freedom!
\nBut buried by the water spring
\nAnd a loved one\u2019s grave
\nLays a little bird in wait to take
\nSomeone\u2019s hand, arm, foot or life away.
\nI need to make some pay
\nI need food <\/p>\n

A Valmara 69, an antipersonnel mine,
\nThe green parrots metal cylinder
\nWill give us a dollar
\nFour to detonate – one mine
\nLeaves two dead, two injured
\nIs it worth the price?
\nThis little tiny destructive device? <\/p>\n

Little boys find new toys
\nBright, shiny, and nice
\nThey take them home and store them away
\nBut sooner or later they take it out to play
\nWith a magnet, a rock or a nail
\nIn the Middle East so far away
\nLittle men grow up and learn
\nHow real men behave
\nI\u2019ve lost a finger, a limb, the use of my arm
\nDon\u2019t give it too much importance
\nFor our lives at least go on
\nFor some they lose an arm or a leg
\nIn a place so poor, they cannot be cared for or fed. <\/p>\n

Who does this you say?
\nBlows little lives away
\nThe Soviets make butterfly mines
\nThe Italians made the Valmara 69 <\/p>\n

Emergency – Gino Strata- 1997
\nAnd one million postcards
\nArrived at the door
\nOf Italy\u2019s President and that country decided
\nTo give birth to green parrots no more.
\nEach card showed not a pretty little bird
\nBut a child mutilated, and damaged and broken beyond repair
\nChildren who paid too high a price
\nFor little indiscriminate toys that don\u2019t destroy the enemy,
\nBut little innocent hopes and dreams. <\/p>\n

The Pentagon and the USA make smart bombs, so they claim
\nTo paint the enemy countryside with small graves
\nThey eliminated the dumb ones by 1999,
\nExcept for the ones planted for Korean\u2019s to find.
\nThose still sit and wait for tiny little hands or feet to steal their fate.
\nThey say it is a small world, so how many in the USA might find
\nThat they somehow know a little child a million miles away
\n Who lost an arm, a foot, or a leg today?
\nSo why do we who do not live near our enemy
\nMake these toys for the young to find
\nAnd destroy civilians who have nothing to harm us or to hide.
\nWhat if these green parrots never flew away?
\nIf they never leave home,
\nThey will not take little lives.
\nIf we want to make others free
\nGive them back their land
\nRestore their dignity and human security.
\nWe can eliminate war the disease,
\nIf we remove all the courageous little soldiers
\nThat never misses and never sleeps.
\nA country can\u2019t plant new seeds,
\nIf digging a hole will create brutality.
\nTo make stronger better boys and girls
\nChildren need to be safe
\nTo play and to dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Performed for EMERGENCY USA, I wrote this poem the week I performed it. I was asked to create something by Anna Gilmore who is on Emergency USA’s board for a charity benefit. It was...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1206"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1211,"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206\/revisions\/1211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}