There’s a movie in which an alien
abandons her quest to save our planet
when she studies, learns, of War. Why bother?
If films are Art and Art reflects life, well…
Life is war, is it not? Napalm clouds,
gas chambers, bleed into
raw bone, severed limbs, and skulls.
Brady’s photographic glass negatives
depicting piles of boots, legs still attached,
turned into greenhouse panes. No one wanted
to remember. The blood of our desert
is infinite. If women ruled the world—
Ridiculous. Euphemisms might
spell safety, but War is a human child.
Lisa St. John is the author of Ponderings (Finishing Line Press) and Swallowing Stones (Kelsay Books). She lives in the Hudson Valley of Upstate New York and enjoys writing in metrical verse which many people think is free verse. Lisa has published her poetry in journals such as Pratik, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Glassworks, SWWIM, and The Ekphrastic Review. She currently works on a memoir when the poems allow it. Her list of publications and awards, as well as other media, can be found on her website at lisachristinastjohn.com