Excise

Felt like sharing an old poem I submitted once to a Canadian website named Poets Against War. I am wary of poetry as I hold it in such high regard that I feel completely inadequate in my admittedly rare attempts at the form. There's a purity to it that is almost intimidating. Anyway, this one is decent, nothing more. But since I am committing more time to my blog (two or three faint and hesitant cries of "yay" drift from the peanut gallery), I need to come up with more content, so consider this an adequate placeholder, no more, no less.

Excise

It's in the rubble

dubious patterns

for those eyes becoming fluent in

the patois of woe.

It's in the drinking men

in dark bars

who never offer their backs

to the bright doors.

It's in the quick flinch

of children

the sudden narrowing stutter

at a backfiring car.

Emergence. Chaos into patterns.

Seismic events

at first merely shudder.

Recognition

begins with one blink

of a clear eye

soon to be jaundiced

as the queasy map of infection

around an untreatable wound.

It's in the blood and the bond

the heart the hearth

the fond slow burn of the kill

it's deep although

(listen, still)

we may yet have something new to learn.