(x = space)

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The Violence

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I guess nowadays

It seems to me

Not to wax

Not in a rant but with

Cold observation

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A reader

And a hearer

And a watcher

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We go to

Wicked without order

(yes, we know it’s good

in New England)

No vision

No plan

Make war not love

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As if we’ve taken all the virtue

All the good things out of

Everything,

Which leaves us

(ask Oedipus

Creon

even Antigone)

Vanity

And hubris

A particular kind of cowardice

For bullying

An awful war

Frankly, an awful peace

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On the inside first

Then interpersonal

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Having arranged

For all of us

By all of us

Easy access to deadlier weapons

Lacking safeties

And restraints

And moderation

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Intentions once machined

To the center

Now lathed

At a slant

Until the work breaks

In the machine

Our better parts left

Ragged

Rough

Deadly points

Untreated

Left unsmoothed

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And then the other weapons

Too easy

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C L Couch

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Antigone. Ismene, dear sister,

You would think that we had already suffered enough

For the curse on Oedipus:

I cannot imagine any grief

That you and I have not gone through. And now—

Have they told you the new decree of our king Creon?

(Antigone by Sophocles)

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Photo by Amber Kipp on Unsplash

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