Legless from a war waged
within a battlefield peppered
with mines in a shot glass.
Powerless embattled egos,
blinded, tripping into foxholes
filled with brambles.
Artillery thrown back,
coating the throat,
the gut with lethal force;
a guided missile traveling slowly,
a warhead seeking to destroy peace,
making enemies of lovers.
Phantom pain lasts a lifetime
lodged in the heart of its victims.
Fighting words projected like vomit,
cruel, napalm fires tossed
from one side to the other
until the ammunitions are exhausted
and each side puts down their arms
in a cold bed.
Charlene Moskal is a Teaching Artist for the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project in Las Vegas, Nevada. She is published in Multibilis, Las Vegas Woman Magazine, The Esthetic Apostle, Indolent Press, and Changes in Life. Zeitgeist Press will release her poetry chapbook, One Bare Foot in Fall, 2018.
