War these days, and the dead of it,
And the sadness of it
Like a fancy bed
Bought with cash upfront.

Today she leaves, and victory is here!
Upon the wings of ravens, off she flies
Into the great apothecary skies

Black, charred stakes writhing from the ground
Bent serpents gaping at the air
Ash left to blow like crystalized smoke
Wrenching height
While newly unemployed looked on
Wondering "Why?"

Here a child-son-sun, there a child-daughter-moon,
Here a Jupiter of thin spectacles staring down, a Mars of broom closets
An office-manager as Venus, a Pluto-Hades of midnight streets

There in the electric magic pages
Of Verizon-droid land, filled with sprinting, hinting white
Lies my love for truth

Today Mubarek, Yesterday Tunisia,
Perhaps tomorrow a Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia,
Lebanon, Palestinian Authority, Jordan -
Israel will miss Mubarek and his 600 dead.

I see your fat hulking diabetic weight
Holding forth for Israel
And no word of Jesus Christ

I saw from the window, far into the valley
Mist entrenched, floating over the ruptured apple trees
Wide enough to border death, black and stinking smoke
A woman who, on narrowed straights and crookeds,

Gadafi's sons
Now that bombs torch their Libyan blues
Discretely hate
Eighty-year old fathers

Sometimes "impossible" is nothing but
The bare necessities
Bursting forward -
Blinding the shadows surrounding

I saw a presentation today
about leadership in Afghanistan
not much was said, really,
a lot of waiting for punch lines
that never came

They said today
That Democrats will lose big time,
The house, senate, and presidency

Small leaves, the very last of summer,
Haven't dropped from the plum tree outside
Yet.

Springtime in Iraq
Probably has no starters
In Central Illinois where I was born
Amidst the cornstalks, black, rich soil, blue, hard sky

I want to sail, to someday draw a close
To all the hills I can not overcome
Inspect Jerusalem, Gaza, Tiberias, Hebron,
To feel Abraham and Jesus walk nearby

There is something about the Abu Grahib
Crucifixion Form standing
At attention, arms stretched out, hooded,
Like a crown of anonymous thorns
Covering perhaps a young Palestinian boy
Or one of their sympathizers

Is Jesus listening?
Am I doing anything right these days?

Iraq grovels these days like a bandito caught
in a net of vice
Smallish by comparison
to what is coming, monstrous alien hoard

Does the sky over Lebanon, that ancient blue
Stretching Pharoh, Joseph, Caesar into a sweaty, marching One
Crumble these days with rockets
Like little rocks jarred from clouds
Too sad to rain?

I sometimes wonder if this little planet, black ball of watered stone
Spinning madly twixt unnumbered stars
Can stand the weight of one more numbered bill
Accounting to ourselves how power rises, falls, collapses, careens
And the like

The missiles and nuclear war they imply
Bother me less
Than my own thoughtlessness
Here next to Malmstrom Air Force Base

Looking for god, or God, or G-d
In the theology section
Prefering of course the cheaper prices marked
"Clearance."
The economy is bad these days.
I can't afford enlightenment.
So clearance looks
Better all the time.

Heaviness and the dark rung eyes
Bagged, fifty, sad, cornered-
Looking for contributions from rich fat cats

I know why we bomb
But it is a secret...
Lies sometimes are secret ... too ...

Clouds of dusty years
swelling in the rear-view mirror of time
settling eventually
And in the distance
All seems smaller, escaped

For you, the skies were rolling on their hinge,
The bluest blues which happy light contrives,
The lovliest of glories slightly singed
By fires too deep to ever know our knives

When every part of nothing falls to less
And every scream of torture is unstilled,
When wounds which now unloose the night are chilled
Into a potion or a woman's dress -

And so we wonder, ever looking back,
Why did we set the fuse and light Iraq?

Perhaps the clouds that cover morning now
Their windiness so caustic and forelorn
The rocking of the willow at the bough
The lantern stirring on its crooked thorn

I did not know that yesterday was here.
Perhaps I should have.  
                                          Yet believing it
would scarcely make it fonder or more clear.
It's hard to say which makes the better fit.

The private was young
And old
When he picked up the soon-to-be self-mutilating rifle
And put it down
Pulling the trigger, a bloody mess

Summer this year rolled in late
This is the first day, maybe
Of the slow, lethargic luxe of sleeping with the windows open

This evening the sky glowed pink
a desperate rose filling up the evening square of window
mocking nothing- just there
As war is there, as life is just there...

I haven't had the time to think of how my daughter
Wanted to enlist, way back when, asking
For my advice, listening, and then, quietly
Going her own way, grace our country's recruitment

These days exude a darkness labelled "light",
A flurried haste of pessimistic lies
Where all seems well, thin-lipped and non-contrite
While Wal-Mart ammunition gaily flies

We have gone on in our own self-created Facebook way
That now all we have left to ourselves is communal death
In blogs - Did we used to sing in the streets?

Today the mailman was not met or seen -
His little one-man caravan
Speeds in reverse while dodging error and other cars -
Even in the freshly fallen snow he rumbles, bumbles by,
Backwards pointing in some crazy opera to himself and time card

When I sit here, contemplating stones fitted into blocks
Of concrete fitted into walls supporting buildings of
Iron gates, plastic windows, linoleum floors, armed
Guards, strip searches, cavity checks attempted,

She,
Dante-described she-wolf,
Was googling that night...