Oh, these women
In their heels and mini-skirts
With their painted youth dripping from their faces;

Oh, these fruits of the city,
These sumptuous, soft, plump, self-destroying
Women that need devouring -

God, can't you help them?
You made them this way,
Hung them in your garden
From Eve's forbidden tree,
Gave them sweet juice and lust to be consumed;
Only to plant the seeds of knowledge
In the dumb beast who eats them.

Oh these damning fruits of the city,
Who bring forth generations of saccharine poison
By nature of their trade,

Oh, these women
In their heels and skirts,
They were born to be condemned.

Almost all of the photographers I've met
Think love is born from beauty, and
To that end that press
Some model's laughing face
Onto another model's handsome shoulder
Money falls against money
In those pictures.

Most photographers I know
Think peace is the only thing
Worth showing anyone -
A snapshot of hills
With maybe a leaning tree
Or a brook running down the valley -
Green against green in a sick world.

But there is one picture-taker
Who goes the world over in search of love
And finds it in huts and jails and scummy apartments,
Who sees that true peace is a falsehood
And a dream to be achieved
Only long after he is gone;
Only when his pictures become scenes
For wealthy and untroubled eyes
And his whisper is taken up as song.

Do you remember that time
We played our homecoming show
On the field, muddy with marching,
With a rainbow arching over us?

Do you remember the kids there?
We invited them to play along,
And everybody got a little confused
About when to leave, and left early.

Do you remember hearing them cuss,
And suddenly we knew we were old,
That sometime in our sleep
We'd crossed sides and grown up?

You don't remember?
I guess you didn't see the rainbow,
Or feel the mud on your shoes.
I guess for you it was second nature.

You got tricked into working,
Tricked into missing the colors in the sky.
Childhood is behind you, and you didn't see it go.
You think you've still got innocence to spare.

You're old and gone now, though you're still here.

The phone throbs in her hand like a wound.
A voice over the wires tells her,
“Your son is hurt, not dead
Like the others, thank God, but
He cannot be moved.”
There is a dial tone.

He will be coming home soon,
And she will set out the best china -
And she must start sewing shut the right legs of his trousers;
She must tell the little ones to be quiet in their play,
But it does not matter.

No more will the phone wound her,
No more will she wake at night with an uncertain cry.
He will be coming home soon
And she will make the little house shine
With her many waking wonders.

The flash of our general’s bayonet
Is brighter than ours, the blade
More piercing, sharpened every day
With a worn out whetstone.

The general’s cry is fiercer than ours,
******* and ferocious. His eyes
Reflect green back to us, as though
No light can penetrate them.

In the charge, no man outstrips the general.
The bullets that fell his men only graze
His flanks, as though a common soldier’s shots
Dare not strike at a higher rank.

He is first to take the hill, first to raise
His battle-muddled head over the ridge.
It is he who first spies the other side
And calls victory while the last men fall.

There is no sorrow like our general’s,
Sorrow that follows each man to his grave
And climbs on those broad shoulders
When the rites are given and dirt thrown on.

And we, though we may know his worth,
Question him for all that dirt - could we not
Have moved less earth? Had so many to die?

Our general, beaten in victory, shuts his eyes.
His chest heaves, but he will not cry for fear
That we are right. He will not have it said
That great men were led to die by a coward
Who was afraid to shoot at death.

His breathing slows, his eyes open,
He orders us to march and not to shy
From death, for always some must die,
Though he cannot tell us why.

In a land of fools, I have walked
The halls of learning.
I have seen the brawny shoulders
Of boys with bulls' brains,
And the pixie-thin arms of
Girls who yield their value
With a cheap laugh and hungry teeth.

I have seen the mudcaked hands
Of striving, fighting fools.
I have seen the victory march
As it dissipates slowly into silence.
Yet it may be said that I know
Nothing of "life," for here is only
Pantomime - and poorly done.

For the fools and I are equals
In the pockets of the world.
Kept like a gold dollar to be
Spent on a child's trinket and
Forgotten in a merchant's purse.
We are like the apples in an orchard,
Waiting safe behind walls,
Only to fall and be eaten.

I was a dog once,
With a thick coat and
A sure bark. A safe bark.
I wanted to make my way
By the sides of humans.
I wanted to smell the
Shoes and feet and
Sidewalks and small
Animals of the world.

I was a dog once,
That am dead now,
With flat eyes and
A flat cage. A sharp cage.
I was named once,
That am now named
"Get 'im, get 'im"
Or called sometimes
Just a shout that
Bites me tight,
Tighter than any
Other once-dog's bite.

I was a dog once,
A loving pet.
I was loyal,
But loyal loses bets.
Now I am what
Teeth demand of me,
What voices demand of me.
I am irretrievable,
And I am hungry.