A mother's tear slips from her

aging face, drowning the warping

wood beneath her feet in fear and

despair; her eldest son will sail

to foreign soil,

no: sand,

this day.

A war begins today.

 

As the tear drop echoes off

the deck, a twisted butterfly

effect, the tears of a sharp-

nosed, leathery, ancient man flow,

forced out by the gas as

his children and grandchildren

and wife, enemies of Democracy,

had been such a short while back.

He stops, straightens his posture,

and takes his stand.

The war begins today.

 

A thousand rounds for every minute

pummel the tiny, mud shack. A young

mother, age fourteen, lies motionless,

a trail of darkened blood lengthening

from the corners of her mouth.

The baby will be silenced soon.

The father rises from beneath

the tin-roof rubble.

His war begins today.

 

A flag-draped box of finest manufactured

cedar was carried, amid 21-gun fire

and Taps, through my town square this

morning. The propaganda spreads like a

bubonic fever, infecting the crowds with

pride for their dead son. They haven't

seen the enormous, gushing hole

in the back of his clean-cut head.

My friend is carried among swine

in front of my tear-swollen eyes.

My war begins today.

 

But wars are begun not by spilled

blood of innocents, not in honour of

long-dead champions of valour.

War is only truly begun when done

in name.

 

In the name of the ambitious, the

influential, the powerful, and the

cutthroat; the unaffected, the

conservative, and the religion-

ridden radicals. In the name of

cowboy justice, diplomatic immunity,

moneymaking schemes, and pro-

paternal aspirations. In the name of

God him-Almighty-self, Allah, and Yahweh.

 

But never, not in dreams untold,

in the name of a weeping mother.

Not in the name of a fiery,

idealistic, resolute guerilla fighter.

Not in the name of a young father, forced

to bury his children and wife.

Not in my name.