Living the Dream

He and I and a dune of dread
wait in arid anticipation
to hear old men commensurate
on when to fight
when to withdraw
when to cross ourselves

and hope someone’s best bullet
doesn’t pierce this deserted company
of young men, playing war
in someone else’s sandbox
looking for arti – facts
or China, or Russia
or any other deep down thing
to slip from camouflage
to save us from ourselves

tight-lipped effigies
of good wives
stand on hilltops
selecting suffrage
as a solace for their silence
of good man gone bad

we pretend we know
how to stop this bleed
of our boyish belief
that we have done right
in the temples of our fathers
and all the crouched
in valleys of beatitudes
bend to give their vehicles
a vile drink from a new grail
while drooling disciples
parry and plunge
another Peter’s plea of forgetfulness

“Forgive me,
for I know what I must do,”
says he, whose breath
is deadlier than a bomb.

Tags: Peace Pleas, Poems //