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The Meaning of Words

The SDF who fought ISIL,
Are now called terrorists.
State news said “neutralized”
When 300 Kurds massacred.

A bloody military invasion
Is “establishing a safe zone.”
14 Kurdish cities- “liberated”-
Are now under foreign rule.

Turkey’s nemesis in Pakistan
Offers Erdogan his “full support.”
NATO urges Turkish “restraint”
The Arab League urges the UN.

The EU cries refugee “blackmail,”
But 6B euros to keep them out.
DoS hasn’t seen “significant”
Examples of ethnic cleansing.

Doctors without borders, fled.
100,000 civilians “displaced”
To join the already 700,000
Requiring food aid in N. Syria.

Operation Peace Spring
Is a bottomless well of war.
Because there is no meaning
Left in the words of men.

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Appropriate

In the American Capital,
The committee passed
The appropriations bill.

In the desert city,
The embassy leased
Homes for soldiers.

In the commissary,
Shelf-stable milk drops,
Monthly, from Ramstein.

The embassy badges
Camels, and says
Do not smoke.

The embassy advises
Don’t give to beggars
During Ramadan.

The embassy diverts
West Bank water
To the US tanks.

On the rooftops,
You can see Israel, and
The Bedouin coming.

On the off chance,
The E4 gives candy,
Coins are exchanged.

On the patio, scorpions
Dash between the figs
Mad, sticky with bees.

On the floor, the baby
Can’t say her name- Lilia,
So he calls her Yaya.

And Yaya cares for him.
While someone else
Cares for her kids abroad.

And she cleans the house
The E4 could never afford,
Where no one belongs.

And not one of them,
Has time to question
What is appropriate.

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Indefensible

In East Nuristan
The FOB named
For the fallen
Is a bad omen
For the rising.

Men slid down
The mountain.
With the snow,
Beads dripping
Icy blood into
The glacial waters
Of the Bashgal.

The river fed
The valley below.
Men fed bullets
Into magazines,
Into weapons,
Into wounds.

As the dead
Were the fed
Into Apaches.
To Bagram,
To Germany,
To Walter Reed.

No Chinooks;
Only single
Blade space.
No banks,
Only buddy
Transfusions.
Out and In.

Surging trade,
Cash, Blood,
Adrenaline,
Democracy.
Nothing lasts.
Not the funds,
Not the shura,
And not peace.

As they tried
To defend the
Indefensible.
From a fishbowl
Between two
Dying worlds.

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Unaccompanied


He knows now.
There will be
No more dates.

No anniversaries,
Weddings, babies,
Looking forward.

But he missed
Uncalendared,
Mundane things.

A two-stroke
Jerking to life
Under biceps.

When sweat
Was life salt,
Not metal sick.

Finding strength
Gone, grieves
Capability.

Another cuts
Grass, carries
The burdens.

Decades ago,
He bore palls,
For his father.

Unaccompanied,
He will go by
gurney to fire.

Ashes to urn.
While another
Holds his wife.

Nothing left
To borrow,
But minutes.

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A Dead Star

Hajis traveling, halted
To whet crows’ feet.
We’d grown too old
Squinting at the sun.

The pilgrimage made
Strangers bedfellows,
And marriages to a cause
If not each other.

But we spoke the same
Inarticulate tongue
That can only be
Transcribed by heartlight,
Illuminated by hands,
Onto the soft vellum,
Leaving indelible ink
On ephemeral skin.

Our love was a dead star,
Over before we knew it.
But it shone through us
Even after. Ever after.