Bombast

Is it wrong to make a song
of bombardment:
stucco walls turning crimson
through the alchemy of war,
rich & poor apartments ground together,
schools collapsed on collateral schoolchildren,
mosques hollowed into husks,
houses crushed in snuff films,
the missiles’ jizz,
a blizzard of shards small enough
for a gizzard, some red-eyed
rock dove’s crop?
Yes. Violence has
too strong a valence.
Unsing it,
goddamn it.
Stop.

***

Snuff films: see here.

Prompted by this selection of words at ReadWritePoem.

15 Replies to “Bombast”

  1. Hmm. Who was it who said “Speaking out is the easy part. Finding a form for one’s words with the power to melt hearts and change minds–that’s harder”? Ah yes, I remember.

    What Deb and Bill said.

  2. Thanks for all the comments, folks. I have another poem on the way, but at the moment I’m hard at work on the qarrtsiluni podcast. It’s kind of interesting listening to all those apocalyptic poems at once…

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