Dusk.* I won't paint you another sunset,
another beautiful striped sea; no, not today.
Picture instead a smooth discolored surface
on which a firmly gripped stone was roughly

ground, causing a painful chalky screech; the
misemployed rock left vague yellow scars and
lavender bruises on the horizon; the sun cowers
behind them fearfully, distraught by the undue

violence; this is the sunset I experienced at
your fragrant side, and wondered - not unlike
that astre - what could possibly justify the

yellow, spectral scars in my heart, the bright,
undue violence brought upon my pride, and
the slighted sunset in my soul. This is *Dusk.

Look!
now they sleep      bloodless warriors
pandemonium stilled      agony slain tranquil
death sanctified in rigid cartesian rows
honored for their sacrifice and selfless valiance
laid to rest beneath mourning grasses

Ask!
where was the higher honor due them      before war
are sacred vows      to be profaned      to be misemployed
                            
Why!
do once verdurous lives lay cold and pulseless
as spatters of red petals      tearfully fall
families breathing wistful flowers
distilling rue      with lulling scents

Adjudge!
all men      who enact lies
dishonoring crossed graves
greed calibrating scales of injustice
bodies tilted high by tonnages of gold
Aurelian kisses      vaulting wars riches

Do Not!
dishonor a warrior’s willingness to die
for bravados mouth is a soldier’s tomb
do not forsake truth and honor    our only faithful ally
ask ten-thousand whys      before one soldier dies
before the bugler's breath      sounds death's lamenting cries

Think!
Contemplate war’s fiery womb
hatred    born inextinguishable
good & evil     indistinguishable

Look, what stillborn bones lie locked in battle
this fleshless monster      we mis-named peace        


gv.2014


Matthew 6:13 . . . deliver us from “evil”
Evil as translated in 6:13 is "Poneros" A name also attributed to Satan
Which means:  "he is not content unless drawing others into the same destruction as himself"
(From Lexicon to the New Testament by Spiros Zodhiates, TH.D

"Soon
the world
won’t have a rib intact.
And its soul will be pulled out."

A line from Vladimir Mayakovsky's 1917 poem , Call To Account

“They made a wasteland and called it peace” Publius Cornelius Tacitus