KJ Hannah Greenberg, Mothers Ought To Utter Only Niceties

excerpt

Mothers Ought To Utter Only Niceties
Author: KJ Hannah Greenberg
Publisher: Unbound Content, LLC
Retailer: Amazon.com
Date: July 6, 2017
Length: 180 pages
ISBN: 1936373548; 978-1936373543

Introduction: The Warrior’s Mother

The warrior’s mother, all peacock attitude, prayers, plus Galil submachine gun,
Settles, frustrated, at an ersatz table built of wood and bone; she loathes the enemy.
Euphony, as Mama knows, means cries, screams, railing in the night, sounding off,
Those others intend, insidiously, to kill her boys. Mama deploys, accordingly, subversions.

She dreams, as well, of questionable warfare, of not limiting herself,
Of employing mobile extermination squads, poison gases, infectious diseases,
Random acts of pillaging, and unpredictable executions of POWs,
But bad characters, those who harbor lice, plague, attitude, wash up the media.

So, when tired from envisaging the offing of bandits, from imagining the flaying of malevolents,
Mama dabs her forehead with cloth, adjusts her kerchief, rubs on lipstick, smiles pretty;
News bureaus obfuscate in line with evil’s agenda. Witnesses hide black, disproportionate force,
Indiscriminate rocket attacks, the use of white phosphorous, most iniquities wrought by “them.”

That side’s creation of orphans, disregard of appendages, illicit building, gall, sells popcorn.
As such, foreign lies, depravation, tank shells full of depleted uranium, knife attacks,
Exaggerated accounts, retouched pictures, castrations of truth, yet sever maternal conveyances.
Those nefarious actions bring Mama to knees of weariness, until they awaken her martial heart.

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This poem appeared in Mad Swirl, April 2013