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Raymond Turco
Poems
Feb 2018
War and Not War (a ghazal)
The Führer smashes his fist down, sending millions into the void.
An S.S. man in the Lager directs his gaze into the void.
British boys lie entrenched, gambling: mortar rains on German lines.
They charge at dawn with bets and hopes, but each pays into the void.
Sailors smell petrol and hurl themselves to the murky waters.
Fire explodes battleships, and grey Zeros rise into the void.
The Angel of Marzabotto buries the dead, wiping his brow.
An officer lodges a bullet there; the Angel prays to the void.
Green GIs go romping through the jungle after Victor Charlie.
They come upon rice fields, and set My Lai ablaze, into the void.
George III holds tight to colonies that raise muskets and new flags.
The Ministry of All Talents leads him, crazed, into the void.
Nippon men flood Nanjing and throw a maiden to the ground.
They ****** their bayonets to send her, dazed, into the void.
Fascist youth march the Bedouins across the Libyan sands.
Captors fence nomads in; the Duce looks, unfazed, into the void.
A young captain and his Bedouins shoot Turks without pretense.
Lawrence, disillusioned, fades out unpraised, into the void.
An English-language ghazal (غزَل in Urdu). The form has ancient pre-Islamic origins in Arabia.
#war
#ghazal
#english
#history
Written by
Raymond Turco
M/New York Area
(M/New York Area)
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