"Cursed Thrice"

If he survived The March,
he might live to see a gun
before a man, his eyes glowing
of nothing but hate for this world.

***

The War was hardly civil,
a banal crux of indigene scarcities,
of choosing Heaven's diagonals
–juxtapositions– all opposing;

and from its exigent front
to inverting lens,
to finding view in a large box camera,
he was a posturing bower of double bluffs,
pretentious –minus the negative tinge.

The depths of his legs were blunt,
formed with ramming and fleeing in mind;
as for his upper mass – for controlling,
it held little but 'still' and sight for a smoothbore.

***

Over the seizing sounds of cannons,
of far-taut, well-taught false-simplicities,
a savage peroration for many,
from which many and he both prayed,

"Without Him,
each shot through
from passing form
is nothing more than against me."