Beat By Beat
-for Neeli
Cherkovski
Neeli formed
poetry
with every
breath,
exhaling a poem
and then
breathing
in another one.
It may have been
too much of a
battle
to keep the
poems down.
so they just
kept coming out,
until they
started scratching
at the brains of
all those
who read them,
etching
themselves on memories,
making
themselves a comfortable home
in every brain
cell.
They’ll be in
there forever,
somewhere
scratching
out more words,
beat by precious
beat.
Shrapnel
War speaks
only one
language–
words formed
with shrapnel
buried in
shattered bodies,
cries for food
from small mouths,
blood soaking
sheets as fingers
dig into the
fabric–seeking
relief that
never comes.
Bones peeking
out,
flesh removed
from
skin that was
once
part of a
painting of life,
gone and
replaced with
abstract pieces
that have
death as their
only message.
There are no
gravestones,
no cemeteries
in the
traditional sense,
in the language
of war,
though it may
seem
otherwise.
The true
cemetery of war
is anywhere you
happen to be
when the bombs
fall,
the dirt that
covers you
is the rubble of
your world,
once so
carefully crafted
to provide
protection.
War chokes,
sputters, gags
and barely finds
the words
to describe its
own horrors.
But the one word
war always
seems to know
is–money.
No one loves the
sound of war's
voice more than
the overinflated
pigs who buy and
sell
stock in the
language of war.
ERIC ALLEN YANKEE
ERIC ALLEN YANKEE is a member of the
League of Revolutionaries for a New America. His work has appeared in many
places online and in print, including anthologies by Vagabond Books, the
Revolutionary Poet’s Brigade, and more. He is the author of five poetry
chapbooks: Bees Against the War (LocoFo Chaps), RIOT (Finishing Line Press),
American Bullet (Atomic Theory Micro Press), The Sun will Become Fireflies
(Honeybees for Peace), and This War (Barrio Blues Press). His chapbook Death
Around These Parts is forthcoming from Writing Knights Press.
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