​The Face of War, by John Davis

The Face of War, by Salvador Dali (Spain) 1940

​The Face of War
 
still dreaming of more efficient ways 
to maim and murder ourselves.
 
what to say
to poison gas, mass radiation and napalm.
to this Hundred Years’ War.
to the snap and crack of broken bones.
missing limbs.
the smell of burnt and rotted flesh.
millions of disappeared, disabled, distended. 
 
so many dead.
 
my guts wrench.  
despair and disgust choke my throat.  
these hell-stones in my stomach will not pass.   
I can say humankind is an oxymoron. 
civilization, a misnomer.  doublespeak.  
 
how to explain all this hate, this mass hysteria? 
 
I say hatred doesn’t simply wheedle its way into us,
metastasize, and then find a place
as insuppressible as breathing, eating or sleeping.
it’s a bloodlust pumped through our veins 
by that evil engine in our chest,
with us from very beginning, prenatal, delivered. 
 
compassion and tolerance 
                                        only mop up the afterbirth. 

John M. Davis

John M. Davis currently lives in Visalia, California.  His poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals, includingDescant (Canada), The Comstock Review, Gyroscope Review, Bloodroot Literary Magazine, Constellations and Reunion: The Dallas Review.  The Mojave, a chapbook, was published by the Dallas Community Poets.