GRUNT
Take the
heads of your
enemies, dance with
them
round the fire built
with a thousand
grieving families, dying,
burning on the pyre
stoked with the
multitude fuels of hatred,
hot, scorching, bone
to ash.
All murder is war
yet not all war is
murder.
I have fought
more than one
I will live to
fight again,
for there
is no peace
over any horizon.
It is not the death I
abhor in war,
it is the never
forgotten,
all-consuming, hatred
necessary to wage it.
© M Durfee
11.28.2014
I like the shape of the poem--it reminds me of a George Herbert poem although he would not have known an atomic mushroom. I was hoping I could load a pic in my comment of a sunset I shot last week on the Cape Fear River--the sun looked like an atomic mushroom--but I wasn't able to do it in blogger.
ReplyDeletethat hate def consumes....and what does it leave behind when the war is over...or maybe it just never lets the war end...the opening part made me think of the people dancing in the street when bin laden was killed...
ReplyDeleteGlad I never had to fight in a war. Not much of a way to come out clean for anyone.
ReplyDeleteI'm stuck on "all murder is war." I can't argue, but I don't agree.
ReplyDeleteI question the hatred of the warriers toward each other. Firing at an unknown shape to hit and affect it is not unlike a video game, which the kids are adept at; except this time it is real and produces blood, sometimes of a child or mother. To back off and see what you have done long after return to organized society may create nightmares in some, or many. Go team!
ReplyDeleteAmen, brother . . . nice "calligramme" to boot(s on the ground) . . .
ReplyDeleteIt is not the death I abhor in war,
ReplyDeleteit is the never forgotten,
all-consuming, hatred necessary to wage it.
this finds the core of every aggression and injustice and tragedy. it's a brilliant poem, mark.
i've hated a few people in my life, i dare say with cause. but i've learned the hard way to put that hatred down, because it shoots both ways, meaning into my innards as well.
thinking of you fondly, as always
love
kj
The hatred stems from fear--fear of the Other, fear of the unknown, fear of change--and the fear is alive and well in those who fight. Sometimes they don't even know what they fear, but the feeling is too easy to give into.
ReplyDeleteWar, the never ending war all starts with hatred, deep and evil ~ Hope you are well Mark ~
ReplyDeleteHatred. You've hit the nail on the head. And there is no peace on the horizon, we have digressed too far off the path for that to realize....
ReplyDeleteWar..hatred...all of it. There must be another way. xo
ReplyDeleteAs I read it to myself, the first stanza sounded like one of those magical ritualistic tribe songs. Really beautiful. I'm glad to have read it.
ReplyDeleteBest.