Through hell we go

War Poet

I am the man who looked for peace and found
My own eyes barbed.
I am the man who groped for words and found
An arrow in my hand.
I am the builder whose firm walls surround
A slipping land.
When I grow sick or mad
Mock me not nor chain me;
When I reach for the wind
Cast me not down
Though my face is a burnt book
And a wasted town.

- Sydney Keyes

Dovie'andi se tovya sagain

Achtung!

I'm war, remember me?
"Yes, you're asleep" you say "and you kill men"
Look in my game bag, fuller than you think.

I kill marriages
If one dies one weeps and then heals clean
(No scar wihtout infection) that's no good
I can do better when I really try
I wear down the good small faiths, enough
for the little strains of peace, the near, the known.
But not for the big absences, man sized silences
Family pack of dangers, primate lusts
I hang on them.

I kill families
Cut off the roots, the plant will root no more
Tossed from thin kindness to thin kindness on
The child grows no more love; will only seek
A pinchpeck eros,and a tawdry shock
I teach the race to dread its unknown freak
I maim well.

I drink gold
How kind ofyou to pour it without stint
Into my sleeping throat. In case I die?
You think I'm God, the one that pours the most
Getting my sanction? Well perhaps you're right
Divert it anyway from use of peace
Keep the gross gaol;starvation and the lout
The succulaent tumour, loving baccilus, the clot
As bright as mine, friends all, I pop their prey
Into my bag

I am the game nobody can win
What's yours is mine, what's mine is still my own
I'm war. Remember me.

- Mary Hacker