I wake to a full moonlit room,
a cyclops train bearing down on me
from over the black ridge—
clackity-clack,
there is no going back
to find my dreams.
Still steady at a distance
killing things, I would have been
a good soldier, gorilla-style—
I know the place to go
to lift the pain away, to become
an instrument of peace
for the suffering, for the enemy
forever an ugly man
obsessed with efficiency.
The madman’s war and refugees—
what peace has he
within his hollow bunker
extinguishing what he wants
just to flaunt his power
for a wobbly world to see?
drycrikjournal 