Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WAR SUITE: 1, by JAMES HARRISON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WAR SUITE: 1, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The wars: we're drawn to them
Last Line: With the blood still red and wet on them.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Death; Mythology; War; Dead, The


The wars: we're drawn to them
as if in fever, we sleepwalk to them,
wake up in full stride of nightmare,
blood slippery, mouth deep in their gore.

̺ ̺ ̺

Even in Gilgamesh, the darker bodies
strewn over stone battlements,
dry skin against rough stone, the sand
sifting through rock face, swollen flesh
covered with it, sand against blackening lips,
flesh covered with it, the bodies
bloating in the heat, then hidden,
then covered; or at an oasis, beneath
still palms, a viper floats toward water,
her soft belly flattened of its weight, tongue
flicking at water beside the faces of the dead,
their faces, chests, pressed to earth, bodies
also flattened, lax with their weight,
now surely groundlings, and the moon
swollen in the night, the sheen
of it on lax bodies and on the water.

̺ ̺ ̺

Now in Aquitaine, this man is no less dead
for being noble, a knight with a clang
and rasp to his shield and hammer;
air thick with horses,
earth fixed under their moving feet
but bodies falling, sweat and blood
under armor, death blows, sweet knight's
blood flowing, horses screaming, horses
now riderless drinking at a brook, mouths sore
with bits, sweat drying gray on flanks,
noses dripping cool water, nibbling
grass through bits, patches of grass
with the blood still red and wet on them.





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