Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.
Dane Cervine
What We Have To Offer
A mountain is a mountain, not a commentary on my life, so the zen parable says. But war looms ahead, again—everything at once speaking to me, even the mountains, the tunnels below Iraq where devils live, defiant, like the dark angels swooning in the black heart of my country, aghast.
We have been deceived. It can all happen to us, every last terror. Beneath the rubble of each gleaming spire, something was incinerated.
Could it be what separates you from me?
Or is each gaping hole a double helix, the genetics of revenge: each eye, each tooth, each severed hand all we have to offer, all we have to claim?
What We Cannot See
A red Coca-Cola can lays empty in the sand— splintered hole from an Iraqi carbine tumbling the aluminum sacrament from its perch on the baked rock. Target practice, ambivalent icon—-longed for, forbidden.
Parched lips are teased by visions of black liquid, effervescent, electric—western devils mixing with virgins in some promised land, but which one? The afterlife
bears strong resemblance to television, desire beckoning, sated, spawning. Everything with a hole in it: flags, buildings, yearning.
A world away, I sip chai, wonder what I would give my life for, am I giving it away now, to what end.
There is a squandered heaven, here, on earth. I live among the few with enough to hoard. Which is why hands beat at every door, wanting in.
I am afraid to look in the mirror, assuming halos, fearing horns. What we cannot see haunts us.
There is a world outside every bolted door, waiting to open.
Peace March
Scottish bagpipes were the reason, the belly dancers rhythmical pulse, or maybe it was the flags: American, United Nations, Earth, Bahai youth handing out heart stickers emblazoned with "there is no room here for hatred."
It could have been the Spanish dancers, children in blue, red, white dresses clicking hard-toed heels to music that says every country is mine, with no lines to cross but the curve of horizon glinting dark then light, the satellite eye true—blue & brown, water & ground all that lies beneath.
Armies are blind, but not the ones who point them, this is the reason children were marching, this is the reason Arab congregation, Jewish temple, Christian lesbians, politicians for peace turned out for this day
the art of survival, a new revival, each shoe looking for another to walk in
before the other shoe drops.
All Hallows Eve
The oak log burns black and orange in the fireplace. A night we are twisted inside out—shadows emerge gremlin-like, celebration of all that is dark inside, the masks we bear worn now for all to see—leering eyes, painted cheekbones, crimson horns.
I poke the fire, answer the door again, offer the large black cauldron of candy to yet another circle of beaming heroes, villains.
Meanwhile, around the globe: costumed soldiers prepare for war, long-toothed vampires pretend the human, dress as black-suited business men, sink the pointed edge of fang into desert, brown skin, red heart—the mask of a president leering across the sea at a fetish of oil.
I, too, am demon and hero. There are many ways to fail, many ways to change a world. Beneath this shiver of skin, this costume separating you from me, we dance as a great being wearing each as a mask. Down the streets, across the wide continents—glowing black here, orange there— billions of eyes peer out, strain to see who is there, beneath it all—the mystery of this All Hallows Eve.
