We **** by pushing a button.
WE DIE RUNNING FOR COVER.
We are fighting for our country.
WE ARE FIGHTING FOR A COUNTRY
Our sons fear deployment.
OUR CHILDREN FEAR BOMBARDMENT.
We bury our dead in the national cemetery.
WE DISCOVERED A MASS GRAVE.
Our war is raising the national deficit.
OUR MARKETS HAVE NO FOOD FOR SALE.
We proudly display our flag.
WE'VE BEEN ARRESTED FOR DISPLAYING OUR FLAG.
Our mothers grieve for their sons.
OUR PEOPLE GRIEVE FOR THEIR VILLAGES.
When will our soldiers return?
I WATCHED MY HOUSE BURN.
Our son came home in a coffin on a plane.
WE BURIED A PIECE OF FLESH THAT WE GAVE A NAME.
We saluted the soldiers marching in uniform.
OUR SOLDIERS DRESS LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE.
We carefully weighed the costs and benefits.
WE DECIDED THERE WAS NOTHING TO LOSE.

A poem can be a statement,
A poem can be a song.
It can be a piece of music,
Playing all night long.

First we have to go up,
Then we must go down.
Then we have to go all around
To find this ****** town.

Poetry is music,
Singing us a song.
Any way you choose it,
Bing, bang, ****.

Assonant sounds assemble,
Alliteration lilts our lyres.
Raps and rhymes are pulsing,
Kindling all those fires.

An orchestra is playing
On this very page.
Letters and words are strumming:
It’s a Golden Age.

Choirs of Angels Singing,
Guitars with a twang.
Ear that piano playing,
This may or may not scan.

If a pawn’s the soul of chess,
As Philidor did say,
Then letters and the sounds they show
Are what brighten the poet’s day.

So get those letters running,
All along the page.
Those sounds are our chess pieces,
Ready to engage.

Paul Butters

Thou didst guard me, Amulet--
Talisman, whose destruction I regret.
Thy spell held me in eternal safety.
Never was I alone,  when thou wert with me.
I gave up thy secret to the sorcerer,
for promise of a gift he could not deliver.
Poor bargain, and I am now wiser
and would not trade treasure for lowly desire.
The sorcerer broke my talisman,
and I was broken, and now alone, I stand.
Too late I realized my error
and was stricken with mortal terror.
On the bridge I screamed, above the frozen river,
under a sunless sky, facing a void forever.

GRANDMA’S TATTOO
“You could cover that tattoo,”

She said….

”show some respect”.
“Do you think if I did….
the world would forget?”

“But your old”,
“And……it’s strange,”
“It looks like a price,”

Grandma smiled and said….

“Well I’ve paid all my life”,

I challenged her vanity,
And…she fought with her pride,
Never again,
Would she ever hide,
I am older now
I no longer wonder……
…..about that tattoo,
Or the cost of those numbers
© B L Costello 2016

Wayfarer,
walk with me
down the open, crumbling road.
We’re two surviving souls--
billion year old
molecules binding
our hearts, muscles,
bones and nerves winding--
let us go back to the beginning,
before the time of sinning,
to the start of our creation,
before government or nation,
to find the garden and lose regarding--
regain our innocence.
The sun, rain and wind will test us--
we’ll build shelters of hides and bones,
pick berries and sharpen knives with stones,
play bone flutes and gut-stringed lutes,
and **** nothing without reason
and prepare for each change of season.
We’ll take our water from the glacial melt.
Our fashion will be the furry pelt.
Of course, we’ll remember poem and song--
for they were never wrong;
art was blameless.
It was the only thing
“Civilization” left us.

We’ll spark fire with pegs and strings
whirring, friction, small kindlings
into fire; we'll sit round and tell our history--
marvel at our ancestors’ folly, what mystery...
We’ll write dramas and dance;
we will honor this second chance.
English we will remember.
And French and Arabic, Latin and Hebrew.
We’ll start a new language, or two.
We’ll wash and sew condoms from intestines;
this time, what we’ll invest in
will be sustainability.
No need to propagate the earth--
it is fruitful enough already.
Only to be in harmony, a place neither above, nor below, others--
the animals and plants, who are our sisters and our brothers.

I’ve studied the lore of your Dark Arts.
I’ve read the book; I’ve learned it by heart.
But try as I may, I can’t play the part.

Though I know spells, and magic potions,
and practice the craft, with much devotion,
of the powers you wield, I haven’t a notion.
Black magic eludes me;
I’m not one of the chosen.

Though I can’t cast a spell in the way that you do,
with practicing magic, I don't think I"m through.
I find I enjoy the study and ritual--
in fact, I believe I may make it habitual.

The spirits I summon do clearly insist
that I work forever, as their alchemist.
This servitude, I accept with pride.
The end unknown, I’m enjoying the ride.

You're the Dark Lord; you are the master--
I may never achieve the goal that I’m after.
But on I toil, a servant of magic--
a lifelong apprenticeship--joyful, not tragic.

The songmaker is my shepherd; I shall not despair.
His melodies make me lie down in green meadows;
His chords lead me by still waters.
He restores my soul, and leads me in the path of harmony.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of silence,
I will not fear loneliness, for you are with me; your blues guitar
responds to me, your notes like raindrops wash away tears.
You prepared a table for me in the high school cafeteria.
You quickened my pulse; my ecstasy was with you.
Surely comfort and joy will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the Houses of the Holy, for evermore.