The End of the Story

The End of the Story

 

My Pittsburgh neighborhood of Aleppo

Is dying

The last reports are terrors

Military action lost strategically

To killing

Civilians who lived there only

Or came to help the ones already wounded

 

Final words are spoken through

Electrons, visiting upon the world

The revulsion of the void

Of life, which is all that is

Increasing here

 

Wait, my mistake, it’s Aleppo

In Syria

The first city

Still dying, still dead

Still a message to those of us

Who read and pray

And politic and must go on

 

The last Marx brother

In a raucous comedy turned horror story

 

Convicted, we establish

A new front for life

In places we might own for

A while longer

 

Otherwise, there might be nothing

All around

 

C L Couch

 

Our Many Faces

Our Many Faces

 

Aleppo, yes, I know

 

Sounds like a sixth

Marx brother from

Post-Vaudevillian

Capers

 

But children die there

From what war takes

 

Which is all right

Since we don’t value

Children, anyway:

 

If we did, we’d see

They were not shot

And killed, they never

Suffered in want

Of food or a good

School

 

We’d value them like

Prizes won in the

Most precious bingo

Game or ski-ball

 

We’d sit with them,

We’d watch them eat,

See that they are

Clean inside and out

 

And have temerity

To ask for help when

Needed

 

We’d celebrate the

Family that we are

Part of, even if we’re

Not their parents

 

Because in the most

Worldly way we are

 

We’d say, it’s for the

Children; and we’d

Mean it

 

We’d change

Everything to have

Them safe and well

And jiggly playful at

Home

 

We’d do the world

Right this time

 

C L Couch

Chlorine

Chlorine

 

It kills our people

We cannot breathe

And when we do

Oxygen is poison

We are Aleppo

Please save us from

Your warring efforts

To bring peace by

Delivering to us the

Gas bombs first

 

 

Mustard gas from the First World War.  Dissolving lung tissue.  There are reasons—compelling decent reasons—for not using these.  When we do, we surrender all humanity.  Starting with ours.

Aleppo, Pennsylvania

Aleppo, Pennsylvania

 

Neighborhood is

Near three rivers

 

Reminding us that

Syria, native or

Immigrant (like the

Rest of ours), has

 

Been America for

A long, long time