War Hymn*

In freedom’s psalm the poets weep
for lives that did not rhyme,
stopped short in prefixated sleep
a postscript spanning time. -JH

With prayer the day is towed to light
as songbirds rest on broken staff,
trill shrilly through the foggy gloom
where mortars shriek to clear the air.
The tremor in the watchman’s rasp
advances time. The hours sweep
o’er wounded in sharp pain and flat
upon their backs with pallid face.
While in the holes the soldiers sleep,
in freedom’s psalm the poets weep.

No faith is sung in church this day
The organ plays a silent dirge
collapsed in ruins on the stage
while tyrant’s goals go undeterred.
Discordant lines of frowning men
march by as bells refuse to chime.
Boots beat an unmelodic song,
from scores unsettled far too long.
Voices crescendo over time
and cry for lives that did not rhyme.

It echoes where the sons of hope
in victory cross the gruesome miles,
embellishes the verdant spring;
Ears now hear staccato cries.
The prisoners in black and white
crawl sickly grey from torture’s keep,
climb slow on free will’s crippled feet,
find home in requiem of loss.
Some shattered hearts no longer beat,
stopped short in prefixated sleep.

The bold in bars with bars upon
their chest sit down to drink away
all memory of ignoble days.
While back at home, the ladies wait
with rhythmic hum of ordered lives.
The drumbeat pulse of lives entwined
casts cords across the silvered sea,
pulls those back home who were preserved
a signature of freedom’s prime,
their love a postscript spanning time.


© Joyce Harback
November 11, 2009



*Poetry Form: A Glosa