Knees quake, stagnant faces caressed
smearing red, smearing salt across painted dress.
Some eyes barren, some eyes gone,
stomachs lurched and stomachs drawn.
Mountains with their moss play bed to fallen boys,
to their wasted lungs powder does still cloy.
Rivers play mother’s cool arms
washing way the mess of harm.
Within in the field are stepping stones of flesh,
made colored canvas with wounds still fresh.
These boys have died a thousand deaths
a thousand different ways
sometimes several thousand a day
losing each and every choke of air.
All morning rebirth is an unlucky fate,
for fellow friend’s faces freeze
mid-word
mid-breath
mid-life.
Their warm splatter upon your skin,
a hole in their head you were yours.
And these bullets, these bayonets
are bombarded on you,
on your boys
by your brothers.
Who you have loved.
Who you have touched.
With whom you have sung your song.
These boys
Are not fighting for cause or crime
or love
or what heats the mind.
You fight.
You die.
Your bodies are reborn.
You bleed
for those seeming Caesars
for those napping Napoleons
who dust powdered sugar off their
plump lips and
canter over each cobblestone as if it were a country.