by s.mckeown

The wail of war horns called the young to throw themselves away.
The peel of mortars, the burning oil launched by trebuchets.
Prehistoric tanks deployed their whistling rounds ignite,
While safe room politicians vow to carry on the fight.

I saw uniforms of every nation duck and dive their course,
Causes armed with children were spent without remorse.
Bloated greed with ruptured seams would spew the willing fodder,
As beasts of corporate virtue ate the souls of sons and daughters.

Every army from long since past appeared upon the watchtower,
From times of stone to nuclear drones each age was called to war.
From Genghis hordes to corporate boards, the parapets of paper,
Would burn again by sword or pen reducing us to vapor.

As if on cue a hush ensued that silenced gun and mortar,
Machines and horses slowed their gait and tanks would go no farther.
The quiet spread despite the rage from flags of degradation,
Lasers dropped from hands and eyes turned toward one direction.

A shaft of light had cut its way through clouds of wrath and fire,
And far below on the valley floor amongst the blood and mire.
The light had found a singing child whose arms were open wide,
The words were strong and strangely clear though the child softly cried.

The melody gently found its way a soothing truthful sound,
The child’s song stayed every hand with words of lost and found.
The dogs of war lay still at last, the beasts gave way to beauty,
The child sang with arms held wide to challenge king and duty.

The song gained strength, the soldiers stopped to turn and lend their ear,
Knights reined their steed to halt their charge from the front line to the rear.
The trenches emptied as soldiers rose to stand behind the wire,
The Gatling barrels turned their last as generals called cease-fire.

I dropped my shield and made my way to where the child stood,
His words cut deep so I felt the need to ask him if I could.
How he found the courage within to sing where death was king,
So I made my way over sightless eyes and mounds of dying things.

Over tanks and trenches, a path made straight to where the child stands,
It seemed I couldn’t help myself I had to understand.
He turned to face me, and then I saw his eyes were full of tears,
“You’re brave to start to sing this song in spite of what you fear.”

And all the while we shared our thoughts he never stopped the song,
While volleys of death were still at rest the words disarm the throng.
I marveled at this child’s voice and how clear the gentle words,
Could make the ageless monsters sleep and calm a war of worlds.

“I had no fear to start this song when cannons first were shot,
The tears are there because I know what happens when I stop.
But you made your way and now are here the only one to ask,
So I will teach you how to sing so I can rest at last.”

So I began with open heart to grasp the lyric and the song,
And though at first we sang together I turned to find him gone.
While song and tears draw soldiers near to come and take my place,
I learn to hold a humble heart that sings Amazing Grace.

by s.mckeown

Above her soars the limestone web,
spun by Mason's sweat and blood.
the lattice weave, the hem of God,
a sacred knit of glass and lead.

Across the floor, the bin wheels squeak,
She genuflects with brush in hand.
Her callous knees in service bent,
she scrubs across the hallowed span.

Below her brush the nobles lay,
Asleep beneath the sword and mail.
They’re whispered query “What’s thy name?”
Her answer: “Your lady with a mop and pail”.

They feel her hands across their names,
Her brush across their titled crest.
Again the martyrs side by side,
are soothed again to calm and rest.

God might judge their bloodied past,
Or wake them to the wrath to come.
Until that time she’ll tend their sleep
Beneath the Abbey’s sky of stone.

Feet have a lazy notion to the find floor
lost somewhere under the pile of our clothes,
discarded in our youth a moment ago
falling hungry in an afternoon of us.

The square smile of the window’s face finds
arms napping peacefully where they fell.
Legs entangled like a passion pretzel,
so whose toes are whose.… who can tell?

Under our sheet of perspiration formed
while we wrestled and renaissanced,
we find the cool at last to sleep
before we’re born again.

She holds his body by her bough,
where ghosts have hung him like a puppet.
Swinging slowly, shadow dancing
above a “sacred” cross of flame

Raven dark her shattered darling,
black as bruises, light as smoke.
Hollow spinning boy in blue jeans
held aloft by mother’s limb.

Swollen eyes and tongue extended
to taste the warm Biloxi rain
Suspended high enough to witness
where his mother lay in tears.

Mississippi lepidoptera.
Shedding chrysalis of sorrow.
Ascending far above the reach
of bayou dragons and men of prayer.