The Whore Named War

THE WHORE NAMED WAR

By Gary Corseri   

The Whore named War

lassoed the President,

let him lay

in lascivious arms;

while the Ministers

and the Secretary

and the People

gawked

in violaceous light

she made them come

over and over and over.

Though they hated her

runny-mascara, caking-rouge

mawkish montage,

they loved how she raked

long finger-claws

over clavicles and genitals,

drawing their blood.

She cast spells with the nettles of her hair,

whispered their names with her sulfurous breath

and they echoed hers back

like drunken sleep-walkers.

They loved her more

than the arms of peace

their wives held out to them,

better than the kisses of their children;

they praised the medals

she pinned in their flesh,

fondled her hands

soaked in fear’s urine.

She sent them to mesmerizing lands

where they learned:

mother, father,

wife and brother,

axioms of teachers,

ministries of healing—

naught; all … naught!

They heard her voice

in the desert sirocco;

in Everywhere’s sun

saw her eyes’ anvil;

felt

the shroud of her breath

in the moon of forgetting.

Their nights were green and their eyes feral,

searching mosques and alleys for video monsters,

in death-strewn arcades full of cliches.

The Whore’s V.D. contagioned the nation,

spewed pus from politicians’ mouths,

prattling mewlishly of duty and honor.

Preachers lavished gifts of diamonds and pearls

and fools heaped ostuaries

to “The Greater Cause.”

Her laughter frothed their putrescent lips,

broiled their brains in the basins of skulls.

They loved the rancid milk of her tits,

the hydra-heads of her teeth-lined loins.

To lie closer, they folded their plicate wings,

ate blood and shit and the sweat of each other,

retched their names in history’s spittoon,

lay blear-eyed, dreamed-out, dreamless at last.

Gary Corseri has published two collections of poetry, two novels and a literary anthology (edited) with work by President Jimmy Carter and others. He has published/posted articles, fiction and poems at Village Voice, VeteransNewsNow.org, The New York Times, CounterPunch, Redbook, Common Dreams, InformationClearingHouse and hundreds of other global sites and publications. His plays have been produced on PBS-Atlanta and he has performed his work at the Carter Presidential Library.