time for the temple whores to sleep with insanity and take the war out of it, a poem … and your Wednesday Writing Prompt
does it bloom, this horror,
from my nonEuropean roots
from the scent of cinnamon in my blood?
the brown and yellow tinges of my skin?
or is it just your old soul and mine and
this intuition we share on the ground
of one another’s battles, witness the fuming
anger feeding disenchantment in the street
and the acquisitive tendencies of the elite,
cowardly saber-rattling, cut off from authority,
from that innate expressively honest power
of our erotic selves, our instinctive selves,
the non-rational knowing that embodies
strength, nothing weak or pornographic
in its expression, a profound antithesis
to the pornography of war and hate that,
in the end, is about impotence, about the
emboli of narrow minds, grasping oligarchs
fomenting tribal dissents for their own ends
or dropping bombs like a child bangs pots –
to overwhelm the fear of thunder, a game
of chicken, of the hawk-hawk play
toward a mutually assured destruction . . .
just a matter of time
as we stand the ground of one another’s battles
where peace would be revolutionary and
the unholy alliance of wealth and fear-mongering
might burn itself out, find its way into justice,
but here we are, once again, in thrall to the
sociopaths, they have us bloodied and bound ~
their eyes are the aged face of clockwork orange,
numb to the obscenities of maim and murder …
where is the will of the cup to overcome
the sword? time for the temple whores to
sleep with insanity and take the war out of it
© 2017, poem, Jamie Dedes; Photo credit ~ July 9, 1956 nuclear weapon test on Enewetak Atoll, an image of the National Nuclear Security Administration and as such in the public domain
Note: This poem is an excerpt from the March 2018 issue of The BeZine, Waging Peace.
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT
Where is the will of the cup to overcome the sword? Why aren’t we succeeding in our efforts to bring wars and other violent conflict to an end? Share your thoughts … perhaps inspiration … in poetry. Leave your work or a link to it in the comments section below. All are invited – encouraged – to participate: novice, emerging or pro. Works shared on theme will be published here next Tuesday. If this is your first time participating in Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photograph to thepoetbyday@gmail.com. This will be used to introduce you to readers. You have until Monday, April 9 at 8 p.m. PDT to respond.
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