War Is Crime
..
,,
It’s a strange philosophy,
making war the ultimate decider of conflict or disagreement.
Over and over it fails, miserably, tragically. Yet the demand persists.
!
Lives not given, not shared.Taken.
Ripped asunder.
Limbs, guts, glory.
Shrieking abandoned waifs,
wailing inconsolate lovers.
Screaming bombs, squealing tanks.
Arms shattered,
vision scarred
for peace, for Fatherland, for prosperity.
Today, cold, raw, ice flecks
obscure a longed-for Sun.
!
Soft blood dries — throes of maggots and microbes
cunningly feast on folly.
Can the wage of war pay to feed our habit?
Vegetation of these mythic forests grows
twisted, tinged in dark crimson layers.
Smell terror, violent death —
fresh meat, or fresh enough for remnant
gnashed snarls of teeth and salivation.
Lullabies drenched in sweet hope
snapped for a dream.
!
all she has known forever ashes.
This ought to be a nightmare.
Here, now, it is horribly … overwhelming.
Heart, blood, breath, these are what matter understands.
Mind is elsewhere.  It has screamed into submission, reptilian —
Heart, blood, breath.
!
Terror reverberates
shakes tree limbs, wavers
vision.  Terror waits ahead.
Grabbing strength enough to veer,
steer clear,
running thoughtless through loss,
unafraid of the unexpected, uncharted,
new.
Unencumbered by old terrors,
expectations.
Ready by necessity to make do,
to start from simplest principles.
Who am I, today?
Tomorrow must take care
of itself.
!
Without law, there is no crime.
Without rules, no crown ascends
by common call – but only by
all against all
in squall of terrors,
contests of survival, games
scored in blood.
!
heart breaks and bleeds
scarlet ribbons
dripping into vital organs
coagulating breath, thought, awareness
there is no promised land of peace
no safe harbour free of misery
!
before the war
when water flowed
in abundant freedom
when the air was pure
of the stench
of progress
when everybody had
a sacred right
to feel
and believe
and dance in the moonlight
when we could afford to be
young, untried, open
to possibilities not cut off
by a sacrificial knife
repeatedly deeply severing
vital organs
without regard to the waste
with no respect for place
or the people for whom that space
holds stories
!
A Call to Russian Soldiers:
,,
,,
Why do you kill these people
who try to defend their homes,
or escape your hellfire?
What lie can you have been caught
by that would allow such brutality?
See the grievous terror you have wrought,
are still wreaking.
What can you plea as explanation,
excuse?
How can you continue to make Hell
on earth continue, ripped into this
bloodbath of destruction, when you,
brave kind you,
could choose, use your might
to reclaim sanity, to save the world?
*
[“what if they gave a war, and nobody came?”]