War & Conflict

A compendium of words was stored here
Just underneath the chimney
I’ d like to see it that way
Fortune won’ t stand still for that
And pressure of the air flattens paper
I’ d like to see it that way
One comes into the room groomed, a pleasure
There’ s a patch of glitter in the glamor
I’ d like to see it that way
Each moment opens up sudden as an umbrella
On a day storms gather like wool
A way I’ d really like to see it
So you can’ t assume a face again
Before the non-face puts in its appearance

At Robben Island the political prisoners studied.
They coined the motto Each one Teach one.

In Argentina the torturers demanded the prisoners
Address them always as “Profesor.”

Many of my friends are moved by guilt, but I
Am a creature of shame, I am ashamed to say.

Culture the lock, culture the key. Imagination
That calls boiled sheep heads “Smileys.”

It was a picture I had after the war.
A bombed English church. I was too young
to know the word English or war,
but I knew the picture.
The ruined city still seemed noble.
The cathedral with its roof blown off
was not less godly. The church was the same
plus rain and sky. Birds flew in and out
of the holes God’ s fist made in the walls.

Oddly enough, there is a
“Unicorn Pleasure Ring” in existence.
Research reveals that Hitler lifted
the infamous swastika from a unicorn
emerging from a colorful rainbow.

Nazi to unicorn: “You’ re not coming
out with me dressed in that ridiculous
outfit.” You can finally tell your daughter
that unicorns are real. One ripped the head off
a waxwork of Adolf Hitler, police said.

The old wound in my ass
has opened up again, but I
am past the prodigies
of youth’ s campaigns, and weep
where I used to laugh
in war’ s red humors, half
in love with silly-assed pains
and half not feeling them.
I have to sit up with
an indoor unsittable itch
before I go down late
and weeping to the storm-
cellar on a dirty night
and go to bed with the worms.
So pull the dirt up over me
and make a family joke
for Old Billy Blue Balls,
the oldest private in the world

Once, in the city of Kalamazoo,
The gods went walking, two and two,
With the friendly phoenix, the stars of Orion,
The speaking pony and singing lion.
For in Kalamazoo in a cottage apart
Lived the girl with the innocent heart.

The puppy must be learned of all this material.
No map of the hospital. First, the war effort.
Then, the war itself. The water makes and remakes
its walls. No persons or boats are allowed in them.

Music: Sexual misery is wearing you out.
Music: Known as the Philosopher’ s Stair for the world-weariness which climbing it inspires. One gets nowhere with it.
Paris: St-Sulpice in shrouds.
Paris: You’ re falling into disrepair, Eiffel Tower this means you! Swathed in gold paint, Enguerrand Quarton whispering come with me under the shadow of this gold leaf.
Music: The unless of a certain series.
Mathematics: Everyone rolling dice and flinging Fibonacci, going to the opera, counting everything.
Fire: The number between four and five.

This is your foreign correspondent,
Aristotle, for The Poetics,
reporting live from the Mediterranean
where the skulls and bones of a few Egyptians
crown the tradeships of His Majesty,
wave back and forth:
starfish — moons — Februaries.

To my right, our military advisor,
Hernando Cortez,
oversees operations at the Aztec/
Mexican border
where to the left of a stone no longer rising from water
a dove collects
its nest egg
upon the skeleton of a hummingbird.

In the dark irritation of the eyes there is a snake hiding

In the exhalations of Americans there is a crumbling empire

In the foul waters of the rivers there are Palestinians

OUT OUT of its borders pain has a leash on its neck

In the wheat stalks there are insects vaccinated against bread

In the Arabian boats there are sharks shaken with laughter

In the camel’ s belly there are blind highways

OUT OUT of TIME there is spring’ s shattered hope

In the deluge on our plains there are no rains but stones