Limerence

every poem is a war

stomping metrical feet,

battling form for engagement,

an arms race to find cadence.

head pounding artillery storms 

shake the senses, 

from campaign to negotiation.

this is no Lear limerick.

no, i don’t want to elevate my writing.

a grasp for the propensity to heal

draws from language and music.

a march on battle maps,

blood in the ground,

take up the lines,

a palliative goosestep symphony. 

the art of war on full display,

from the schoolyard to the grave.

war to end all wars,

gun money floods the street. 

treaty, no treaty, a fight

in words. the struggle.

how many graphic ways

can you write the word, ‘poetry’?

American blood-splatter—

never, ever.

when war is forever,  

count the multitude of war poems,

the roses, the poppies, the ribbons.

thoughts and prayers, the emptiness.

no tears of the sun,

no gold, no god,

false tears if you like,

there is no such thing as a just war.

troop wasp attack

with mercenaries of no flag,

well-regulated.

an obtuse ricochet, a Julia.

pulsive susurrations, mistpouffer boom,

upsweep, whistle, bloop,

sends chills of frisson down my spine.

I have no limerence

for a Memorial Day…

add the victims of gun violence.

Do we give them a May?

the 29th of 2015, 

in broad Memphis daylight,

the last martyr, an archangel

from the war in heaven…

took a bullet to the chest.

the lines, the bars.

hear the upsweep, slowdown train,

the bioduck, the ping. 

Forest Grove to Moodus microquakes,

sea to sea blessed geography,

hold the note— war is crime.

only the dead have seen the end of war.

let ‘we the people’ take up words,

put the arms down on page.

take back our public space.

honour care of creation.

freedom! that is freedom.