What Did It Matter by David Jackson
And what did it matter
after my last poem was read,
after the last painting,
painted in red,
and what did it matter
after the last bet was lost,
lost in the roll of the dice,
lost in God’s conquest or
man’s wisdom or
folly.,
lost as surely as the
fundamentalist target is
lost,
lost as surely as the last
child of war is
lost,
lost as you,
or
I

***

There are no favorites.
There is no victory,

only gladness that I have no

child

to sacrifice

to the masses,

calling themselves this or

that,

the masses,

of which

I am one,

tumbling

without

control to

eternity,

with only this,

merely a comma in the dialogue,

a simple request,

let’s have a spot of tea with our war.

King George always likes a spot

of

tea.

***

Here we are now
in the shadows

of truth, or

what we may think is the semblance of

love which is truth, or

beauty which is truth, or

peace which wants to be true

but we don’t seem to let it

carry us

home.

So here we are in the

shadows waiting for the

warmth of summer’s truth,

waiting for our fellow man

to stop the killing of little

children

***

Until Then

——————————————————————————–

When reason rules the world
there will be no flimsy excuses
for war.
When love rules the world
there will be no
children crying.
When there is hope again
then our votes will count again,
but not until then may we rest,
not until then may we be silent,
may we be content
to let lies be counted as truth,
to let the children of war
lie broken and
bleeding
without pointing to say
look, there!
– David Michael Jackson
***

Waiting
waiting for
nine oclock,
fifty five years,
Godot,
waiting for
morning,
saturday,
for
candy,
ice cream,
a woman,
a man,
waiting for
sunrise,
sunsets,
a doctor,
lawyer,
(the engineer is on time)
waiting for
truth,
justice,
and the American way
and hoping
that it will all turn out
okay.
– David Michael Jackson

***