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From section 4, Soldier, of Saltian
After war
By Alice Shapiro
Not a fan of war
I abhor violence in all its peculiarities
yet the warrior who fights injustice
knows the core of evil unbounded.
A bully must be beat
in a language understoo
or thwarted like Mahatma did
wielding pacifistic love.
Where are the saints, the solvers?
In the ranks, trenches, holes
battling one on one
the horror
then coming home to concrete sorrow
wondering for the children destined
to cause the morbid death of flesh again.
Poised in a corner, covering his knees
blazing eyes turn terrified
the enemy within his head
nests and festers.
Under a crumbling wall
cold, a hand extended for a dime
he sings, surrenders to the rain
remembering the heat of battle.
It is a shame.
Critique: Responsive writing
Before war
By Bryan Borland
These are the daughters and sons
of America in all their curiosities:
school clothes in bandit gunfights,
candy rings on trigger fingers,
playground resurrections unlimited
and without repercussion.
The bully here is time. The bullies
are the geographies of our births.
They say no draft exists
but what of the socioeconomic lottery
of Small Town, Michigan,
where the factories have closed
and the only ways out
are blood oaths and mamas’ tears?
Before war, a family of five
sits at a dinner table in Ohio.
They memorize the names
of villages in Afghanistan.
They learn the technology of absence;
the patriotism of the missing.
The oldest will leave in two days
and when he returns, the Medusa
of conflict will have changed his upturned palms
to stone. One day, those palms
will face our direction. Stone ourselves,
we will pass in silence.
We will be ashamed.
Responsive Photo
By Bryan Borland
