Meaningless treaties
In the end the blast kills all
Butterflies rejoice
Chagall 2019
I don’t care if you are left or right – both sides suck.
Tag Archive: war
beyond the horizon
approaching machines
© Chagall ∞
Another year and the war would end
but on the day my friend Johnny died
the triangle of his flag hung looking
over the city from his mom’s window.
The summer we were ten he stands in a sprinkler,
in his boxers (not really a swimsuit) with
the biggest grin because it’s vacation and
life is good and the ice man is coming and
we’ve got a dollar to share.
© Chagall 2106
Where do all
the tumbleweeds go
after they’ve blown away?
Where do all
the scorpions hide
during the rain storm?
Watch me now,
James Brown said,
watch me as I bust a move.
Radio
even back then
out there in the desert.
© Chagall 2016
For my Dad, 5th Marines, Spearhead Division, Iwo Jima,
who lived through events that I cannot even fathom.
My dad said
just before landing
they handed out shots of
pure grain alcohol 180 proof
courage at 9 knots moving in
Higgins boats toward the island
when the bow ramp dropped the Marines in front
went face-down quickly into the ocean while the others
ran by to stake positions on the red volcanic sand surrounding the prize
Mount Suribachi
© Chagall 2016
If every planet teemed with life,
the multiverse one big beautiful bazaar,
billions of blue orbs everywhere,
star-travel commonplace, fast and cheap,
an interplanetary agora of sorts, would there still be war?
Chagall 2016
My Dad called everyone Cap’
since his days as a grunt Marine.
He never spoke of Iwo but I knew
it disturbed him deeply, men from both sides
deep in red volcanic sand strewn about Mount Suribachi.
They passed around pure grain alcohol
on the landing crafts, some hit the beach
in a daze.
The Oldest Gyrine, they called him,
he enlisted when nearly 30, came home
to work in a bronze foundry, flamethrower hot,
my Dad the grunt Marine.
Chagall 2015 – Semper Fidelis
Alphabet City 