Poem: “The Wars,” by Howard Moss, from New Selected Poems (Atheneum).

The Wars

How can I tell you of the terrible cries

Never sounded, of the nerves that fail,

Not in jungle warfare or a southern jail,

But in some botched affair where two people sit

Quite calmly under a blood-red lamp

In a Chinese restaurant, a ludicrous swamp

Of affection, fear drowning in the amber

Tea when no word comes to mind

To stand for the blood already spilled,

For rejection, denial, for all those years

Of damage done in the polite wars?

And what do I know of the terrible cries

That are really sounded on the real hill

Where the soldiers sweat in the Asian night

And the Asians sweat where the soldiers flail

The murderous grass, and the peasants reel

Back in a rain of gasoline,

And the shells come home and the bombs come down

Quite calmly under a blood-red moon

Not far from China, and the young are killed,

Mere numerals in the casualties

Of this year’s war, and the war of years?

He stands with a knife in the Daily News.

They are snaking their way into the hills.

She is walking up Broadway to hurt again.

They are fleeing under a hail of shells.

He is taking her neck into his hands.

A human seed squats in the dark.

She is scalding the baby in the bath.

He feels the bullet enter his skin.

She spits in the face of the riot squad.

They are sitting down, they are opening wounds.

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Note: Because I’m posting this persuant to fair use for educational, non-commercial purposes but without permission, I made every effort to link to a site where this work is for sale for the poet’s benefit. If you have $1005.86, Barnes & Noble may have access to an enscribed used copy. Wow. Out of print, you think?