(x = space)

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Looking Out from Earth

(considering)

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Inside wars

We’re living inside wars

And it’s a hate-able

Life

Explosions all around

We feel the blood

And everything

Left over

That had been

Our families

Our better nation

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And I’m not there

Most of us

Are not there

We hear the counts

We see the numbers

And they’re

Too often

In the courts of numbers

Not outside

Where we

Suburban breathe

And have our way

With local stresses

Only

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Take thou

Our breath

Away

Let us be like those

Having only dust

Inhaling

And nothing for a meal

With no electricity

To see nothing by

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It can be like this

On all sides

Who live in darkness

Really

Who think

Like Sneetches

Adding fangs

And cells

That they have the light

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And after all the irony

The hatred

That is

Sibling

It’s all over

While it’s never over

Too many names shall stand

We could not stamp them

Out

Or their recollection

As Ukraine

Palestine

Russia

Or Israel

Tibet

Burma

The Rohingya there

Maybe Ceylon

Rhodesia

See

Some things should change

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While other things

Remain the same

People as people

Breathing

Pulsing

Moving

Having life

Allowably

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Whom to indict

Why

I don’t know

I’m sure

My country fights the war

On terror

And on drugs

How are these going

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Bless the advances

Harbor the retreats

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The war

Inside the war

The war

To end all wars

The war of heart to heart

Chamber to chamber

Fluid all around

When sick

Ready to squeeze

Ready to say

I’m sorry that I made you

I’m going to try another world

Now

I mean it

This time

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War is hell

So maybe hell is war

Forever conflict

Always killing

One thing or another

Nothing qualified

To escape

That is

Live after

Lest we

Let some chiefing of our making

Some cabal

With secret knowledge

Take over

And perhaps

We never know

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So count our organs

Count our limbs

Count every hope

Still shelved somewhere

And in daylight

Bring it out

You have to sometime

That’s the risk

In living

Anywhere

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C L Couch

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Photo by Richard Gatley on Unsplash

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