War

 

War

Mortar shells resound in my dreams

Sleep and wakefullness blend in my head

In a seamless roll and I cannot rest

I become human and can love again

When the pungent smell of blood disgusts me.

The soldiers trudge by in our dreams

And leave body parts in their wake.

 

Our bodies are still warm with blood

But our souls have grown cold in war

The acrid smell of sulphur and lead

Rankles in our nostrils lest we forget

That earth's benign and heaving bowels

Holds more than just a store of things

To feed a generation bred to waste.

 

Our feverish feats of shafting mines

Cannot expose Earth's most sacred ores

Like the beating heart in a mother's womb

From its seed springs eternal life

She is slow to act as the veil of life

Is slowly thinned by her surrogate hands

Yet she knows she has time on her side.

Author's Note

I wrote this poem as a reaction to the Iraq war still going on. There was no reason to go to war. Except, we have less oil and higher prices. And the environment is no better off than when it all began.

Reviews

[Marie Starr]

Nice! I especially like these lines:

I become human and can love again
and
She is slow to act as the veil of life
Is slowly thinned by her surrogate hands

the second set of lines has a very nice flow ... I love the image of surrogate hands, though I am confused about them being hers ... it seems if they were surrogate, they would not belong to her ... and the repetition of slow and slowly, maybe steadily? Steadily gives that feeling of marching on and on and would solve the issue of two slows in one stanza ...

I'm with you on the futility of the war ... kudos!