In Time Of War

In a Time of War

I comb my hair
while the bombs fall.

I walk the dog
while the bombs fall.

You brush your teeth
and tie your shoes.

Shrewd Odysseus draws the trembling bow.
The arrow—winged death—shivers the air,

pierces the throat of the boldest suitor,
shocked sprawling on the floor.

They kissed their wives goodbye
took a subway ride and died.

After a chat and coffee at work
their choice was to jump or to burn.

Holding hands like sweethearts,
they leapt from the hundredth floor.

And we don’t even know the language
of our invisible adversaries.

It sounds to us like a disconsolate singing
out of those blank spaces on antique maps.

What would we say
if we could speak?

It’s too late for words.
Our tongue is in our bombs.

Hektor shakes his head and his infant son cries
at the fearsome bronze helmet he wears.

He takes off his helmet and laughs
flinging back his head, the god-like man,

but his wife whispers, “Don’t go.
I know you will…but don’t.”

My neighbor’s son leaps in armor
out of the roaring Blackhawk

onto the whirling sands,
which withdraw into malign silence,

and he tastes fear for the first time
like a new penny in his mouth.

Children stare at the men and the sky.
They seem not to speak any language at all.

Children with broken smiles
and brothers with guns.

Men crouch in cages,
while bombs fall.

And there will be a trial,
the old lurch after justice.

Shouting in rage man-slaying Achilles
pursues Hektor about the walls

of the many-towered city, destined
to crack in flames and fall.

He drags his enemy’s body in shame
bouncing behind the chariot.

When the cheers are over
a whispering begins,

and when we load our massive planes to leave
and they lift like deserting gods

and dwindle to specks in a tranquil sky,
the tyrants will be back, here or elsewhere.

An unseen god leads Priam the king
to Achilles’ tent, full of laughter and wine,

where the king clutches the knees of the man
who slaughtered his proud son,

and begs that Hektor’s body be returned
for the sacred burial rites.

At last the killer and father weep together
for all those they loved who have died.

It’s just a wornout story
a blind man once told.

And I drink coffee with a little sugar,
shovel the walk, drive across town,

turn on the news,
turn off the news,

while bombs fall
snow falls

countries fall
innocence falls

stockbrokers fall
soldiers fall

and children grow, their eyes
full of bombs and misgiving.

January, ’02
Charles M. Boyer
chasbo2@earthlink.net
First published, writersagainstwar.org, Jan. ‘06