Peace pieces

[Doreen Peri]

i.

yesterday I didn't think anybody
gave a shit about peace
and today I get down
on my knees to plead
with the universe for
a fraction of it 'cause
pleading for 100% is only
a fraction of what needs to
be done.

I watched a man running down the street.
He screeched to a halt in front of a yield sign,
shook the damn thing hard until it broke from
its concrete mount, pulled the whole post out
and hurled it across the street where it landed
on the orange do-not-pass line, passersby staring
at him jaw-dropped like he was a maniac, which
he was, and the good Lord looked down from above
shaking her head, glad the javelin didn't cause any deaths.

What was he so angry about?
Sexual frustration, no doubt. Stresses he couldn't deal with
but wished he lived without. A violent chemical reaction
to the world he couldn't control. He sold himself to a lost cause,
put the tape on pause and lost his grip, except for the one
he put on the spear!

Can you hear me, friends?
Why does ire set in? What makes the fire
inside surface? It's hard to tell but the dude
shoulda quelled his fury!

Where does anger come from?
Good thing he didn't have a gun!

What causes war? What is it for?
Is war for the purpose of population control?
Is war based on money? Does it stem
from anger or power?

War is a coward, a bully, a punk.
It is hooked on control-freak junk.

What can we do to cut off its supply?
I await the day when I can watch
War die.

_____________

ii.

Where is everyone?
Out making peace?
Out making love?
It's always so great
to make up after fighting.

Is that why the world is at war?
So after the bloodshed,
we can all go to bed
and make love better
than we ever did before?
Nobody gives a shit about peace?
Could it be true? Damn! That's so
fucking sad it makes me want to cry.
Every day people die. We live in a country
that bullies the planet, dammit, you and I
work hard all day to have our taxes taken away
to send our sons and daughters off to kill
and they come back in body bags, fill
up morgues, it makes me ill!

Nobody gives a shit about peace?
Please tell me this isn't so!
Makes me wanna go out and shake 'em,
wake 'em up, yeah, take away their blinders,
dare 'em to see, yanno? We've gotta go
to the inside of their brains somehow,
show 'em the stats, escort 'em to the funerals
perhaps. I donno, but GI Joe, he's comin' back
with nightmares while he's awake, nothin' much
different than vietnam, for god's sake!

1, 2, 3 what are we fightin' for?
"Don't ask me I don't give a damn"?
Same shit, different day man oh man,
could it really be? Nobody gives a shit about peace?
Tell me it isn't so, wouldja please?

Gotta see that Spike Lee piece.
Govt sat by watched people drown.
'Bout time somebody brought the cameras down,
did a Katrina dedication.

Damn dollar's in inflation.
Cost me $40 to fill my tank an hour ago.
Stupid idiots invade a country to control their oil
then whaddya know? Can't count the dead,
they're in bed with the oil cartels and hell,
all our pocketbook's are empty.

What's it all about, man?
Nobody gives a shit about peace?
They must have some damn short
attention spans. What DO they care about, then?

Save this planet...
AMEN.
____________


iii.

I went to the Vietnam War Memorial
one Sunday afternoon last fall.
There were a row of us standing
so small staring into the names,
our faces reflected on the stone.
Many tears fell like an atonement,
a baptism of cheeks, and the dignified
graves of brave men were represented
only by etched letters and the witnesses
who stood by each other, shoulder-to-shoulder
strangers, one family, unable to embrace,
eyes staring into the tragedy
at sunset.

Many names etched in a row,
and I thought of their headstones
welcoming semi-annual sprays of garden
displays as the mothers march on,
the brothers get sent to yet another
location, armed to kill and still they
play the minstrel's song and long
for the day before they were sent away,
recalling mornings on the front porch
sipping coffee. He liked his black. And she,
who pleaded with him not to go, preferred
a bit of cream and a half teaspoon of sugar
to help the bitter taste go down
more easily.

_____________

iiv.

we take little pieces, slight pieces pieced together,
build a storyline, deciphering plot and underlying subplot.
we work to dot each i, insert commas, pauses,
try to complete incomplete sentences lost on us,
move away from original plans, alter previous diagrams
and outlines which don't work.

there is random Justice when chapters are lost.
Liberty is created with cost.

we attempt to please,
ease through, cease opportunity, undo, redo,
see through missing moments, stolen cold.
stories unfold,
bold stories told.

there will always be critics. we are our own worst.
forgiveness is a terse argumentive child
requiring supervision, acceptance.
revisions of documents
cannot be made, once printed.
circular mistakes awaken.

too late to edit.
too late to edit.

scenes stun in flashbacks
after necessary fast forwards. we move on.
we move on toward conflict resolution.

petty, minute, wee, trite,
we slight our owned errs, climb
stairs backwards in dreams.
ghost wishes insist on streams
of conscious renewal. Time dies
with each exhale.

pages turn, fires burn out -
were they miniscule, brief, lillipution,
narrow, dwarfed? we attempt to morph memory
with responsibility. we challenge guilt,
climb on stilts, look down on ouselves beneath.
we race with relief from self admonished blame.

our reward?
slight pieces spaced
between slight peaces.
slight peaces.
slight peaces.

nothing written can ever be erased.
each statement placed, historic,
each spoken word heard, recorded.
stories constructed, foundations poured,
steel erected girds - words and rewards,
stirred insurrections, rejections, acceptances,
letters documented.

we spend our days in wonder,
thunder, the brash tactic of
a storm. morning arrives,
headlines, reported, published.
we write reviews, read op-eds,
often resort to cancelled home delivery.

what is the price
for this subscription?
slight pieces of wisdom.
slight peaces, solemn.
forgiven.

solemn peace.
solemn peace.
_____________
iv.

If God had intended for us to be peaceful creatures,
he never would have created bombs.


(2006)