Bullets From Bones

“War Hero” by Laura Barbosa

 

we are that species
who numbers cadavers
more wardead than
died-in-their-sleep
since antiquity more
bloody years rent with
combat or suffering
siege than at peace
knowing war begets
war we make beautiful
bullets from bones
to recycle their valor
reconstitute sacrifice
crumbled in graves
of both soldiers and
citizens lost in the
billows of battle-fog
all of which pale against
whole populations
entire generations
erased by the wickedly
punishing sword
flame or slavemaker’s
brandiron victory often
takes into its hands
asserting its dubious
rights of immoral
barbaric revenge
oh the genocides
staining each century
back through prehistory
utter depravity
strangling humanity
with our pretensions
to power that mock
the theology vested
in principled ethics of
jus bellum iustum
we know the right
thing yet continue
continue continue
to do what we know
to be wrong leaving
open for all our black
bloodied millennia
questions of whether
or not our apparent
intractable flaws
are perfectible