Just Wars
for D.B.A.

this is what limits
your ability to write poetry
as well as your ability to live fully

this "just" you find necessary
to insert in what poetry is
in what poetry does

"just" you insert in yourself
like tampons or between your legs
like whatever sanitary napkin

your just is not just, is unjust, is injustice
is a wall about a city,
walling in and walling out

part of me in, part of me out

poem written only recently
about wanting to take down walls
I suppose hadn't anything to do
with me, with us

you and your just walls, unjust walls

poetry within the middle
of the lake of existence, landing
along with your period blood, dripping

stone dropping in the lake's middle
sends ripples out
to the very edges of creation

nothing "just" about
where poetry is or what poetry does
when it is everything
when it is everywhere
it begins everything, it ends everything

but you are not ready to believe
or to accept this
so what am I preaching to your for

what is the use
of what I'm throwing away here
down the drain with a million other words
with all my other deeds
to do with you, added

ii.
sign of the cross made over and over
between salvation and damnation
between enjoyably living and self destruction

sign of the cross made over and over
between heaven and hell
between hell fire, the fires of hell
and what heaven has promised
what heaven has to offer

sign of the cross
made over and over again
when she takes happiness away
or threatens to
and I am near to not knowing
what to do with myself

is she as stoical as she pretends to be
does she cry
does she make the sign of the cross too
when crisis nears,
when we're coming apart

my heart in her fist
and her heart in mine
squeezing and squeezing
we two in pain

just as painful
when we are no longer walking
hand-in-hand

I make the sign of the cross
at times like these, again and again
in desperation, in prayer

with the sign of the cross
I hang on, hang in there in bad times

I pray in good times too
and laugh and cry


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2010
Written between 2:55 a.m.
and 4:16 a.m., on Friday,
December 31, 2010