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Two war poems by Janet I. Buck

Dances with Dragons

Forts of dreams for liberty
stand firm in a spiral of grief
as we bury our dead,
pray for the prisoners of war
trapped by a man with axes for palms.
We know Hussein will use
his own for human shields,
dress soldiers in civilian clothes.
Rules of war mean nothing to despots
who murder to garner the puppet strings.
He'll let his people die of thirst
before he'll drain his swimming pool.
This is a dance with dragons and fire,
with vultures and worms.
Turn the other cheek just once;
he'll score it with razors and knives.

I clean the shelter of my home,
mop a floor that doesn't need
ammonia baths just to dodge
the noontime news.
Spirits sagging at the price
of deserts in the throat of battle
coughing sand and coming blood.
Someone's husband, someone's son
is braving cold bullets and scathing dust.
Edges of concertina wire
for ribbons on this pulsing horror.
White flags they trust
could be warm blankets over guns.
Their every step is thick black ice --
still they march to save our wrists
from shackles and no future gait.


Shredded Shirts

Hands above their rattled heads,
two men march a roiling berm --
a shredded t-shirt for a flag.
Memories of hatred fresh
as cinching ropes.
They hope Iraq's militiamen
will stay too busy with war
to massacre their infants
and their tearful wives.
City speakers echo
with their cruel demands --
Fedayeen or die deserters
in a desert punished for eternity.
Jails or shame or razor wire
everywhere they dare to look.

Barrels of guns, bricks of tanks,
a bridge in ruins -- is this goodbye
or some beginning set in gold?
They still recall our stirring presence
on their soil -- igniting riots
then the cold abandonment --
stoking fires of liberty and walking off
to sip on easy Perrier.
Confusion for a welcome mat.
Falling bombs for snooze alarms.
Survival and a moment's sleep --
that luxury beyond eclipse.
Death awaits on either side of lines to cross.
This is a place where a man
can be right and wrong
in the same shallow breath.
The sun itself a candlewick
too gone to trust, too short to not.

Janet I. Buck's web page || More Poetry by Janet at Ariga