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TOD HOWARD HAWKS Mar 2020
The title comes from the song SCARBOROUGH FAIR by Simon and Garfunkel. This one line has inspired me to write this poem. Isn't that what Generals do, "order their soldiers to ****?" And that's what soldiers do, as well as being killed, as happens to too many of them. Why don't Generals (who are themselves rarely killed) order their soldiers to love, to put down their weapons and find another human being and give that human being a hug. Maybe even break bread with their fellow member of the human race. Killing each other is insane. We no longer have to use high-powered military weapons to **** our distant relatives. Some crazy ******* (e.g. **** Trump) may accidentally, or on purpose, drop a hydrogen bomb on a city, let's say, and in so doing, **** all of humanity in short order. Nations are anachronistic anyway;  catastrophic climate change, which threatens to **** all living creations on Earth, tells us we are all in this together. There are no national, political boundaries to keep us from possibly dying of the coronavirus pandemic. The Arctic and Anarctic glaciers that are melting as I compose this poem are oblivious to national, political boundaries. So are the toxic fumes that oil-using nations spew into the air that all living creatures eventually breathe and, in time, die from doing so. Why do we need Generals ordering their soldiers to **** when presidents and dictators are doing a far better job of killing than Generals ever could? I myself prefer a hug to a hydrogen bomb.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
A graduate of Andover and Columbia College, Columbia University, Tod Howard Hawks has been a poet and human-rights advocate his entire adult life. He recently finished his novel, A CHILD FOR AMARANTH.
Luna Maria Mar 2020
closer closer closer closer
closer closer closer closer
closer closer closer closer
closer closer closer closer
closer closer closer closer
closer closer closer closer
closer closer closer closer
closer closer closer closer
closer closer closer closer
closer closer closer closer
closer closer closer closer
closer closer closer closer
closer closer closer closer
closer closer closer closer
closer closer closer closer
closer closer closer closer
please?
Aver Mar 2020
i love you the way it hurts
the way it cuts me
further than a knife
i watch the blood
blackened with lust
seeping with envy
all the vices
poison in my veins
i feel you coursing through them
like a drug
going straight to my brain
like the bourbon we once drank
that late night in the city
street lights blinking
and you called me pretty
and part of me died right then and there
knowing that you’d never be mine
mine
that’s all i want
i need it more than i need the air
that i’ve been struggling to breathe
i need to tell you those three words
instead you watch as they strangle me
if only you knew
do you know?
am i fool for assuming your ignorance?
are you blind to my bleeding heart
has my blood not stained the earth enough?
nor your sheets that we lay in?
have my lips not whispered a thousand little things
words phrased perfectly to say
everything but i love you
but god how i love you
how i ache to feel it from you
but i’ll keep on giving
my body and my soul
hoping that one day
i’ll reap what i sow

- - - - - - - - - - -

how can you not see this?
isn’t it cruel to watch me do this
to torture myself so
to beg for love and affection
yes i know i get your attention
but love that’s a burden isn’t love
asking for your time isn’t love
i need no conditions
no terms of agreement
i want crazy endless love
i want to be blinded in imperfection
i want you
all of you
i’d give a hundred years
to spend one more night beside you
i’d breathe my last breath
dying to hear you call me
that sacred name
that beautiful perfect name
i’d give anything
just say that i’m yours
why do i love you so
ian was my cloud-castle
ian was my dream.

the love was always the love
with my ian.

i was his beautiful bird
he was my beautiful boy

he was my gentleness of heart
he was all my day and all of my night

i love my ian for ever.

when i come back it will always be
beth and ian.
ancient history
insane Mar 2020
i think the distance
we have,still
keeps us together ;
when the waves of the sea sang of summer,
wan midnights and flowers beguiled

by a love strong and tender in slumber,
awakening tumultuous and wild,


oh, love, sweetest love, won’t you listen
to the song that the fierce sea sang,

while the desolate waves seemed to glisten
and silver bells rang.


oh, my love, oh, my love, hear the fire
of the love that has blossomed for you,

a song full of want and desire,
and all of its dreams about you,


the wind fires up through the mountains,
the clouds fill the desolate sky,

the waters of earth fill the fountains
and all the seas sigh.


and i never felt love for another
as strong or as passionate as for you,

and my legs longed for yours like a lover,
and forever they’d stay ever true,


up high in the night sky the birds fly
and plunder the sorceress moon,

and love in her waves gives a soft sigh
and falls in a swoon.


the solitary sea starts to whisper,
with a love that n’er knows of a god,

and the mist on the sea-wall grows crisper,
as it dampens the ghosts of the sod,


and love cries out loudly at sunrise
toes dipped in the trembling dew,

forgetting the murmurs of moonrise
besotted and blue.


the wind now no longer seeks shelter,
curves the clouds who now run and then run,

sings of tides full of moonlight who welter
with tears (though no gift of the sun,)


and these tears for my love i now carry
stripped away like the sun and the rain,

our love both soulful and arbitrary,
flowing true in the vein.


the flowers of midnight are calling
like lilies with petals outspread,

on an ocean that dreams as it’s falling,
and falls like an anchor of lead,


the streams lift up high as if dreaming,
the wings of the wind’s edges bleed,

and all of their wonderful streaming
begins to recede.


the sun sung out once to the morning,
unshackled the wings of the seas

who flew as the light started dawning,
as the sea water started to unfreeze,


day more of the morning soon conjured
of magics both dreadful and free

of tenderness’s sweetly outnumbered
like your love for me.



the brightening bird grows to an ocean,
its brilliant wings full of day,

and our hearts sing out loud with emotion,
the clouds float along in their greys,



the light in the sky starts to shiver,
no longer of evening and night,

sings songs of the moon’s lonely river
her lamps set alight.
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