This war being what it is,
a long time will likely pass —
too long, sadly —

before one side will realize 
they are facing those
who will kill and are ready
to do so;

under the misconception
that love is enough,
that what this war demands
is a tsunami of love 
to overwhelm hatred;

even as the ridge
above them fills
with snipers and artillery,
no one among them has the power
to raise that wave
and wash the hills clean

so they vote, they talk, they cry,
they laugh at the war; they mock,
they gossip, they pray — and down they fall.

On the other side of the ridge,
ignored by the killers,
some people are building
a new world within a fortress,

and of course
they have gun slots in the walls,

high above the gardens,
the nurseries, and the homes
they’ve prepared for peace
without assuming it as a given.

I knew a man who used to say,
“I’m not Machiavelli but…
there are days when the old guy
makes a lot of sense.”

I didn’t want to listen to him.
Maybe I should have paid him more mind
when he said things about ends
and means and how to play the game.

He’d say, “You don’t fight Evil from a distance.
You have to take it where it lives.
You have to go where Evil goes
to take it to the ground.

“Your face may set a little harder.
Your hands will not stay clean.
You will get dirty and it will show — 
but dirty is cleaner than filthy.”

I should have listened harder.
I should have paid attention.
It would have made it easier
to look at my hands today.

Tomorrow, another run
to where the Evil lives.
Every day I care less
about the stain and stench.

You can’t do this from a distance.
Can’t do it with words alone.
Can’t do it without feeling
grime beneath the nails.

But someone has to do it
even if, after it’s done,
the ones you did it for 
wring their hands about it.

Your face will set a little harder.
You won’t say much until you see
the one who needs to hear you say,
“I’m not Machiavelli, but…”

To look through a window and see
pedestrians as coin
and imagine them

going about their business
unaware
or carefree, 

draining from your pocket
instead of filling it
it is to forget who you are.

To look out 
your blood window
onto a flesh world

and see only metal people
is to think flesh and
skin are blast-hardened.

Is to be blind to
the way all flesh
tears itself open

under enough pressure,
is to be oblivious to
how a bullet splashes it.

How a machete 
pries it apart.
How a bomb spreads it

across a room. Looking out
your window of blood
and imagining that’s

moneyworld out there,
you have forgotten
you aren’t made of steel, either.

silence to you,
voice of the end.

silence, I command you to 
silence, to your ears
opening wider than your maw
of a yapping face. 

silence I tell you,
silence from your
cottonmouth brain,
your self-important
hemlock breath,
your falsely righteous
gas chamber
world view.

free speech,
you scream, give me my free
spew. as if you’ve ever
paid for any of what you’ve said.
as if there’s ever been 
much if any cost to you
for being this loud.

I hear what clatters 
out of your body
and I cannot call you
by your given name
and feel clean. 
you don’t sound 
like a real person. you sound
possessed, or gone
from your shell, supplanted by 

this stench. this is not sound
you are speaking. this is
odor. this screams in all my parts
that hold history. memory

of hangings, massacres.
of camps and reservations.
of the rule of thumb and 
the machinery of rape. the land
drained. the people drained.

if I were to give you a name 
it would be cristoforo colombo.
it would be bull connor.
it would be aristotle.

if i had magick I’d say:

silence, then.
silence, you voice of 
end all, be all, screaming for 
obedience to the dead and gone.
I bind you to silence.
I cast you into it.
silence, I say.
you are now made historical,
caught in the pages of a book
which can be closed upon you.

we will always know you’re there.
we just can’t know you now.