{"id":94883,"date":"2017-07-03T12:01:20","date_gmt":"2017-07-03T11:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=94883"},"modified":"2018-12-20T09:49:03","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T09:49:03","slug":"the-whore-named-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/07\/the-whore-named-war\/","title":{"rendered":"The Whore Named War"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Whore named War
\nlassoed the President,
\nlet him lay
\nin lascivious arms;<\/p>\n

while the Ministers
\nand the Secretary
\nand the People
\ngawked
\nin violaceous light
\nshe made them come
\nover and over and over.<\/p>\n

Though they hated her
\nrunny-mascara, caking-rouge
\nmawkish montage,
\nthey loved how she raked
\nlong finger-claws
\nover clavicles and genitals,
\ndrawing their blood.<\/p>\n

She cast spells with the nettles of her hair,
\nwhispered their names with her sulfurous breath
\nand they echoed hers back
\nlike drunken sleep-walkers.<\/p>\n

They loved her more
\nthan the arms of peace
\ntheir wives held out to them,
\nbetter than the kisses of their children;<\/p>\n

they praised the medals
\nshe pinned in their flesh,
\nfondled her hands
\nsoaked in fear\u2019s urine.<\/p>\n

She sent them to mesmerizing lands
\nwhere they learned:<\/p>\n

mother, father,
\nwife and brother,
\naxioms of teachers,
\nministries of healing\u2014
\nnaught; all \u2026 naught!<\/p>\n

They heard her voice
\nin the desert sirocco;
\nin Everywhere\u2019s sun
\nsaw her eyes\u2019 anvil;<\/p>\n

felt
\nthe shroud of her breath
\nin the moon of forgetting.<\/p>\n

Their nights were green and their eyes feral,
\nsearching mosques and alleys for video monsters,
\nin death-strewn arcades full of cliches.<\/p>\n

The Whore\u2019s V.D. contagioned the nation,
\nspewed pus from politicians\u2019 mouths,
\nprattling mewlishly of duty and honor.
\nPreachers lavished gifts of diamonds and pearls
\nand fools heaped ostuaries
\nto \u201cThe Greater Cause.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her laughter frothed their putrescent lips,
\nbroiled their brains in the basins of skulls.
\nThey loved the rancid milk of her tits,
\nthe hydra-heads of her teeth-lined loins.<\/p>\n

To lie closer, they folded their plicate wings,
\nate blood and shit and the sweat of each other,
\nretched their names in history\u2019s spittoon,
\nlay blear-eyed, dreamed-out, dreamless at last.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dr. Gary Steven Corseri is a m<\/em>ember of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment.<\/a> He has published and posted articles, fiction and poems at hundreds of venues, including,<\/em> TMS (Transcend Media Service<\/a>)<\/a>, The New York Times, Village Voice, Redbook Magazine and<\/em> Counterpunch.\u00a0 He has published 2 novels and 2 collections of poetry, and his dramas have been produced on<\/em> PBS-Atlanta and elsewhere.\u00a0 He has performed his poems at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum and has taught in universities in the US and Japan, and in US public schools and prisons.\u00a0 Contact: Gary_Corseri@comcast.net<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Whore named War
\nlassoed the President,
\nlet him lay
\nin lascivious arms;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-format"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}