Three War Poems

[Violet]

... as it seems war means to be with us for the foreseeable future (and that should come as no surprise to any of us, I don't think), I thought I'd post here those poems I wrote just before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, excepting the third poem, which was written about a year and half prior to that...



Morning’s sudden reprieve


It’s another morning,
another morning paper,
a new sense of a word.

All that was held once
(just to be held)

shoes
left in work camps, or
the name of black lung.

When the day comes, it’s
only after so much putting off.

like our necessary mindscapes
for hiding, it’s the way that trees
keep our dreaming, so
we can get on with it.

if it were an object,
it might be unnamed;
some metalwork
bent in ruin

in difficult greens and
black and beige,
what you do is hold tight,
the way you do at the wheel.

its horror is really best upon
reflection, all the while its motor
is running, just like a breeze.


If only there were memory enough

to fill the hearth,
the home,
the fields with all that
the trees keep
in our dreaming.


2003




Bloodletting


There’s nothing new about
this sudden lust for
bloodletting; the carnivorous ooze
anointing the machine.

it’s all in the wrist, having
at it. it’s actually a huge relief.

the perpetrators, of course,
won’t immediately recall it. once done, there
is a greedy lapse, then a necessary
numbness. cognitive paths
forged like this
will eventually dig too deep

in a repetition that devours even
the strongest.


2003




Kinship of Loss


We keep vigil with my father
whose life is not just alone and tried,
but also what we show him
through our eyes and hearts
these days too dark
to mention. still, all around us
are the signs.

a country that hangs with its own hubris;
its flags draped in fits of defiance.
they’re all smugly full with that –– or else
the chaos; the fear.

but in our home this tumor doesn’t know to lie,
the cancer that sits so close to his heart, so close to
ours, so close to what history may have
in mind.

yes, simple flowers
are lost on us now... that ordinary dream
of yards and dogs and bittersweet
remembrances.


late September, 2001

[News Gal]

These are absolutely beautiful. Thank you for sharing them

[Violet]

... Thank you so much, N. G., your appreciation of these poems means a great deal to me...

... I'm sorry things are going sour it seems on that other thread, and I hope that things might be in some way amended to your satisfaction, or at least that you won't leave us, based on what's happened with, well, this G. person...

again, I thank you for your kind comment,

v i o l e t

[imaginary friend]

Sister Vi-O-let the Merciful,

These three work well together. The last one is particularly tender; the sense of dread, of nothing being the same ever again.

[Violet]

Thank you, I.F., and it's true that nothing ever was...

sadly (sometimes),

v i o l e t