for I ate all my peas,
minded my masters at school,
then learned to march manly,
and straight

to these trenches
that surely are maps of hell;
if there be such a place
beyond here

in this dead, grey pasture,
pocked by shells, and body parts
strewn about like pieces of a puzzle
that don't fit

Father said go, make England
proud, but I know you would not wish
this fate for me, or any of the children hiding
in these pits, waiting for the command

to become fodder for the Gatling gun,
the cannon; you would shed cataracts
of tears for all of us, if ghosts above
yet weep for the living

the ****** who will soon join you,
though none know when; surely you
will hear me cry your name, the way I have
seen them all do, with their last breath

As far as these children are concerned,
It is the sky itself that is ringing;
Not knowing how on a very still day such as this,
The moraines and drumlins
Will play catch with the sound of the bells
Emanating from the tiny old church over in Peruville
(Indeed, they are likely unaware the chapel’s existence)
Nor would they give the matter a second thought,
For they have mounted their bicycles,
Pointing spoke-wheeled steeds
Toward the small single-block downtown of their hamlet,
A journey of epic proportions requiring all due haste
(Though, unlike in our day, there is no long hair
Flying unkempt in the breeze,
As we have imposed the sensibilities of helmets upon them)
Though we know it to be a half-mile, at best,
As the crow flies, covered in three, perhaps four minutes,
But they are not concerned in the least
With the mechanics of straight line measurement,
The vagaries of acoustics, the minutiae of glacial residue,
For they have not accumulated the wisdom of the elders,
The practicalities of the sciences,
The ability to construct elaborate boxes of equations
Or any of the other bright, shining theoretical bracelets
Which fit, albeit a tad snugly, on our wrists and ankles.

I drown in the careless glow of the moon
He bares me an eternal wink
And I sink
in the forever fading,
blue velvet sky
Grasping for the faintest hope of
Reality
The sins I cling to,
make the stars gasp
My face burried in White skirts
As I have the strange tendency
to wear white chiffon
To funerals

Words are now
as if
I never wrote

gather as an aching
lump in my throat.

They don't seek paper
only a river
to pour and mingle
in refrains of a dumb sadness
flow away
sunburned and tidewashed
to where the river is widest
deepest with sighs
of life not enough
in once only
and when just begun
ending broken on the shore.