Wars Begin – Never End

A teen I was
Forty years ago I bled
In a simple hallway
The Projects they called them
Forty watts dimmed the brick
Yet red seeped through the black
And war was a happening
Leaning against a neighbor’s door
Television was alive
Other wars ala CNN were heard from inside

Blood leaked
Like a Chevy cracked block
Oil of my engine seeped
My paisley nylon shirt
Now a Rorschach forever
Spent oozing hate across my belt
Down my jean-clad legs beginning to waver
Onto blue suede Florsheim made purple
Atop a concrete floor
Awash with “just another day in the projects”

Plague stained metal
Doors without answer
Embracing my smear of ruptured veins
Flowing freely from ego and vanity’s fallacy
Destined to dry and remain
Ordained as road signs beyond theses halls
Wars begin – never end

I fled

I schooled
I loved
I trained
I mended

I arrived
Forty years later
Thrust upon two-room homes crumbling
Décor of Pollock nightmares
Colors not of any rainbow

Beneath my Combat Medic fatigues
Scars felt open
Sharing the blood of blood
The history of history
The war of wars
The Syria of past and future savagery

Bodies of crimson splattered anguish
Knowing only of war
Only of dictator fallacy born of ego and vanity
Crumpled fear once huddling in corners
Finally rests piled
One lifeless innocent upon another
Adding but another blood stained page to history

Oh the greed of It
The horror of It
The senseless empty use of It

It is everywhere
But goes nowhere

Wars begin – never end