Changes
Mail call, salvation in the field
Look, another book from my aunt
Shit. More poetry
and I thought I asked her to
send me dirty magazines
like she used to for my uncle
She says that was another time
Another place
Another war
Sandburg, is this guy Jewish?
Whatever, I’ll take a look
Bunch of stuff about Chicago
and I’ve never even been there
Whatever
A phrase catches my eye
“A Million Young Work Men”
First, I thought it would be like
A Million Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong
but I was wrong and now
I wish I’d never read it
Shit about dead young men from
two sides of a war and all of them
cold underground, slaughtered each other
for no reason at all except to make
their leaders fat and happy and rich
And then this poet, Sandburg
dreams of their bloodgutted ghosts
They all rise up out of graves and scream
Damn the czar and Damn the Kaiser
(I thought that was a roll, whatever)
But that was another time
Another place
Another war
We’re not in this because anyone
is gonna make money or score points
We’re in this because we are patriots
and we’re gonna teach these muzzlims
democracy, even if it kills us
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Fireblossom’s prompt at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads is tricky today: Find a poem you love, then write a poem about that one, first person, third person, fiction or real, anything goes. Hers, about a man reading Byron to a young woman, seducing her with the words of a long-gone poet, really hit home. Read it HERE, it’s terrific. This is also “in the margins” at Poets United.
I love Sandburg in all his incarnations, especially his Chicago poems, because he deals with social justice in layspeak. Never talking above the reader, his words are carefully chosen and deceptively ordinary; yet, the power of his convictions is clear. I wrote this as an aunt trying to connect with a nephew serving in Afghanistan. His through brainwashing makes it clear: The Powers That Be have won… again.
Thanks for reading, and peace, Amy
Sharp Little Pencil 
Roger Green
The chicken hawks never seem to realize: war sucks.
Sharp Little Pencil
Both my brothers-in-law (plus one, deceased), chicken hawks, all. Yet this one B-I-L was all gung ho once it was time for HIS kids to go to war. Plus, he and my sister didn’t want to pay for their college, so they were forced onto the GI Bill by their parents. Honest to Pete, she berated me for asking her to sign a petition to stop the doubling of the college loan percentage rate with this argument. I told her sorry, Riley voted to turn her swords into plowshares, and so she does have debt, but at least she wasn’t killing people she never met via video game technology… A
Mama Zen
This is really powerful work, Amy.
Sharp Little Pencil
Thanks, Mama. Thought you’d like it. Amy
I HAVE A VOICE
Sorrows and blood, so much evil designed for power! Doesn’t anybody realize that we are not the possessors but the stewards! Wonderful Fabulous writing !
Sharp Little Pencil
Whether one calls is evil or hubris or greed, it always boils down to Stale Pale Males. And yes, we ARE the stewards. Thanks, Louann. Amy
Seb
Mmmmm. As a poem, it is fleshy and full of visceral and psychic horrors. I won’t burden you with an argument about the realities of the world into which you have brought it 🙂
Sharp Little Pencil
THanks for the first, and you are more than welcome to bring on the second! As long as we can be civil, I’m open to criticism. Peace, Amy