Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.
Sonja Skarstedt
43 years old
Sonja A. Skarstedt poet, painter, editor and publisher, was born in Montreal, Quebec. She is the author of three volumes of poetry, most recent of which is Beautiful Chaos (Empyreal Press, 2000), and a play, Saint Francis of Esplanade (Empyreal, 2001).
Panoply
The galaxy window cracks open: a strand of stars greets the sunrise certain as a tyrant the desert a disheveled dustbowl rises into view its foreboding erases the stars whose pandemic light endures splinter after splinter
a Tuareg appears out of nowhere his sandals soft and withered as his endurance, disturb the silt on a hardpacked dune
the oasis where his camel slouches warily its tattered hide looped over spindles of bone
the Tuareg extends his chapped hand to a leafy branch and extracts a small rough sphere whose biblical promise to nourish makes him tremble for a single monumental second
he cuts the fruit with the ivory-handled blade his grandfather bestowed on him the day he was tall enough to tug the fur on a camel's belly his thrust reveals a pocket of wet red jewels he hopes will sustain him through the blistering hours of infinite grit and endless days to come but before he can lift the pomegranate feast to his dry lips a bullet spins into his ribs as it tears through him his mind snaps away to a fragrant corner of the past it is my time intones his mind as if it has been preparing for this moment all along it is my time the air rushes past him silica tainted
he meets the sand with all the force of a whisper his Tuareg robe billows around him commemorative as a blue flag its majestic calm sends shockwaves across the pale sepia horizon as a clockwork formation of Uncle Sam's finest moves out of the oasis shadows
on first inspection the folds of his face are more leathery than the shell that holds the pomegranate whose innards are still clutched in his right hand its lifeblood glistens its seedy scatter spreads and vanishes into the nearby umber silt
its uneaten fruit is already drying in the wind as the Tuareg's copper hand, already fast asleep lets go of the awareness that it will never again trace his granddaughter's face his torso resonates serenity its feet freed from pebbly jags and burning parches are already pondering cool cirrus, far removed from the pulverizing burden of life, its tapestry of fissures those caustic spokes of repetition birth death battle. The Blue People carry their brother away bury with him the lie of no more revolutions and other promises whose only reprieve comes in particles of cartilage and complacency.
