POETRY PEACE VIGIL

"It is the duty of every poet to speak fearlessly and clearly."
Sam Hamill
If you've been moved by this unjust war to write a poem, please consider submitting by email to thorleypl@yahoo.com, or mail to SPC. Work on themes of war, the war economy, oppression and political injustice, and/or which celebrates more positive hopes and visions, will be considered.

Answers from the Man Who Tried to Cook an Egg Over the Eternal Flame in Paris

That flame burning for them

can't mask the stench

we shared. These days

of creak and recline my eyes

roll back to blood-
storms and soiled

fatigues. Edges
of calm breeding

practical jokes,
irreverence necessary

as K rations.
Boiling an egg

over The Flame,
I hear them whistling-

men I haven't touched
in fifty years. Cracking

smiles wide as the Arc,
belly-laughing, dog tags

jingling like a bell
choir. "Why not, doesn't

the fire belong to us?"
says Mac. Joey wants me to try

a sausage on a stick
or a can of SPAM and I think

about a discharge paper,
a finger, a hand.

Marjorie Manwaring is a writer and editor living in Seattle. Her poem Magician's Assistant appears in this year's Syracuse Cultural Workers Women Artists Datebook. This poem was previously published on the Poets Against the War and Voices in Wartime websites.