Foucault: Who First Thought?

Who looked into the din and confusion of war, in the mud of battles,
for the principle of intelligibility of order, institutions, and history?
Who first thought that politics was war pursued by other means?

                                              --Michel Foucault, from Society Must Be Defended

W. S. Merwin: Witness

(Image credit: Princeton Alumni Weekly)

Witness 

I want to tell what the forests
were like 

I will have to speak
in a forgotten language

                           --W. S. Merwin

Chris Hedges: War's Crusade

Once we sign on for war's crusade, once we see ourselves on the side of the angels, once we embrace a theological or ideological belief system that defines itself as the embodiment of goodness and light, it is only a matter of how we will carry out murder.   

                       --Chris Hedges, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

Shakespeare: A Living Wage

Palamon:                                            Yes, I pity

Decays where’er I find them, but such most

That sweating in an honorable toil

Are paid with ice to cool ‘em.

                        --Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen, 1.2.31-33

No More For Me, Thanks Anyway

Read an article from sciencedaily, Running a Marathon Hard On Heart.

Well, that does it for me then. I'll just continue sitting on the couch, reading Uncle Walt, and drinking beer.

Running

Running

I return today to Shingle Creek,

walking in the fine fall afternoon

alone. Wading through the shallows

to the east bank, right where the creek

cuts close to the old Bronson place,

I feel like the last ancient Israelite

crossing the Red Sea, barely ahead

of Pharaoh’s chariots.

                                     Crouching low

under the barb-wire fence I swish

through the shin-high grass, the humming

dragonflies hunting insects, shining

their blues and greens

in the lowering sun.

                                 I hear

a tractor in the distance, the rumble

carrying far in the clear air,

and I think about that day

we ran, you and I, making paths

through the field, pretending we were

dirt bike champions, shifting gears

by the rising tone of our growls.

For hours we ran, stopping just to catch

a lazy red corn snake sunning

on a sweetgum stump.

                                     I know

that with these old knees

I couldn’t run like that now, not by

any luck or necessity; and you,

old friend, only in memory

will ever run here again.

--------------------------------------------

For dVerse MeetingTheBar. We are writing about friends, friendship, loss, in honor of Dave King. Dave was a regular contributor to the online poetry world (at least until his health limited his participation), and his kindness and craft will be missed.

Stephen Crane: There Was a Crimson Clash of War

           
                                                  
                                        XIV

There was a crimson clash of war.

Lands turned black and bare;

Women wept;

Babes ran, wondering.

There came one who understood not these 

          things.

He said, "Why is this?"

Whereupon a million strove to answer

          him.

There was such intricate clamour of 

          tongues,

That still the reason was not.

                                     
                                             --Stephen Crane, from Black Riders and Other Lines