Armistice

Armistice

A grey cigarette haze lingered

above the bed like gun smoke

over a battlefield and we,

the casualties of war,

lay beneath. When we kissed

I tasted Bataan on her lips

and she said she could see

Manzanar in my eyes.

At times love is a negotiation

between desire and history.

The clock on the bedside table

flashed in dim red numbers

as the battery was nearly spent.

After the passion runs low

there are not many choices;

a long march in the Philippine sun,

a desert cage of spiral concertina wire

or a one last bloody conflict that ends
with the squeeze of a trigger. 

SMG

Los Angeles to New York

Los Angeles to New York

Varicose veins
scar the landscape;
reminders of rivers
long since dead.
Burnt sienna
and raw umber
scraped across
the desiccated canvas
by a laughing god
with a palette knife
and dirty brushes.

Fascinated eyes
survey the wasteland
through Boeing glass
and the relative cool
of thirty-five thousand feet.
They will find no Jews
wandering in this wilderness
only the occasional
Navajo dust trail set free
by an old pick-up truck.

SMG