Hindsight

I must admit, despite the damage to my liberal street cred, I am torn on Syria.

The reasons are too complex for me to post on in any meaningful way, but ,unusually for me, this process of thinking through has lead me into a poem. I don't normally post poems here because, well, it's a blog about poetics and things but not necessarily about showcasing my own work. However, because this will likely go nowhere beyond me, I thought this "thinking through" poem could be posted, just this one time:

Hindsight

a fourth, typed draft

The boy has cried

and we heard him

but we're so tired now. It's

a new wolf and an old 

boy is dead, swallowed

in parts, I think. In our

uncertainty, cries are heard 

again but we know that

wolf already and have

seen it's eyes and  teeth that

pervade.

The boy cries, a leg is

gone and blood has

our wolf lusting over there. We've

heard it before, though:

we've known the stench of

death, eyes rolled back

and white, entrails spread down on

clay and read enough. We

can deceive, unknow,

unbecome when it's only

the ears which have been

sprayed across.

The boy is dead, anyways, but

it's not our boy, our blood or 

even a neighbors': we can keep

the door shut, yeah, but we 

linger in the outer hall, wondering

when one leg became a hand or

liver. The boy was left an

eye and gristle.