Love and War
Originally posted on MASSOLIT. Bit of experimental writing I did for them, the editors over there liked it so maybe y’all will as well.
Souls of bright and pure fire fixed in firmament overhead witnesses to the day's combatants, quick ends quick and who will be dead. Labyrinthine green jungles of a cold Vietnam, ghosts of the forest pound the trails to flour of Adam in pursuit of love and rage. We inject ourselves into this green, a beast our fallen nature makes and war with the language of love's coy luster.
Sunrise red in September haze, the souls of trees a burnt offering to the dawn, the dead subsumed for the living and to the earth their carcass given. Unblinking eye on our small drama: two assassins bowstrings taut expectant stand. I paint in the language of love to wage war, entice and speak of promised love here near the water's edge. A lonely cow and hapless bull, enraged and cautious to keep what's his.
We would tell stories to our children in times past, before a mouse cast his demon smile spell across our minds. Cautionary tales of death and drama and warning. Fairies in the forest, don't follow the voices, beware of the sirens or any forlorn woman unclad near the water. Her's is the way to death and her footsteps lead down to hell. Do the elk tell such stories? Would they? Can they? They should because they're true and here I stand as proof. Promising multiplication but delivering only subtraction. My two assassins ready, covering each approach.
A cry, a call, response to love and adventures primal promise. I call back and continue to paint the picture in sound. The Cow wants strength, her calf must be the ubermench or near by to it. Response, call silence, rake a tree, thrash the brush, tear up plants by their roots crush them and cast to the ground. Sound like elk, imitate, mimic, entice, then an arrows shaft for a kiss. He's coming nearer now, pacing, looking, the caution of the wild, breaking sticks across the hillside.
The zephyrs or God takes pity on the love hungry beast. We see him through the trees, legs and muscle moving speckled with slanted morning sunlight. The wind swirls, he smells us, he runs. War returns, red in tooth and claw and in its face to fly is the oftentimes souls best response, flee, even if you leave your cloak, and you may escape destruction.