(x = space)

x

x

Don’t You Know There’s a War On

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Yes

I do

And in too many places

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Stop it

There

That’s that

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(but)

Real war

The awful

Bloody king

That rents bodies

Families

Homes

And nations

Sometimes underneath

The quick

Where there is no fire

For warmth

For life

After the explosion’s fire

That roared

And then ceased

Under nothing

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Is there a rubber drive

A paper drive

A drive for metals

After their first uses

No

There’s money

Certainly

And drives for that

All sides

Wanting

Naturally

Humanly enough

x

But closer in

Flesh is required

Holding weapons

Fired into the right direction

No protests

Allowed

Obey

Or be added to the fodder

We might not count

For service

Or for loyalty

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Safely apart

We play games

Watch them

Eating food we do not need

Though it is ours

And the point is

To bring the world up

To peace

For play

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How do we answer these

The tragedies

The questions

I don’t know

We could stop

The wars

Encouraged by contemporary versions

Of the Lysistrata

Reason could invade

Rather than

Atrocity

And greed

Reason could finish it

If somehow most of us

Agreed

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I don’t know

Do you

Stop

Right now

Forget the rest

Leave it half-done

(half to stay alive)

Keep the warring general in Russia

Let Hamas keep to itself

In the basements beneath hospitals

Then move the hospitals

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Let other

Designing warriors

Anywhere

Take note

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Who erstwhile

Or present

Future

Makes these happen

There’s God

Who’s waiting for our minds

Maybe what

There’s reason

There is conscience

And goodwill

On Earth

Come out

To work

To grieve

To build

And then to play

The game on Earth

No brinksmanship

Anymore applied

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We go home

With others

Searching homes

And to rebuild

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note

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I know I speak

From safety

That I wish

Then pray

For you

For everyone

Who needs it

In certain places

Even kinds

For whom war must

As all wars do

Like (and with) pre-judgments

Victimize

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C L Couch

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Photo by Pop & Zebra on Unsplash

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