Love Poem: Bare Facts

Bare Facts

BARE FACTS

When did we stop
Learning from the pains
Of holy men,
Of scholars’
       Thorny throats 
              With pulsating words of wisdom
Ripped from their tantalizing tongues
And fed to greed

When did we stop
Listening to the screams
        Of lovers bearing heartbreak
        Or the mothers bearing babes

   The babes grown into warriors       
   Puking guts and glory
Whose moans 
     in battle or 
     in bottle’s buzzing memory


When did we forget the Warriors

Memory of loving faces just an
Ache 
an echo of their first faint milky cry 
       (Gangs or armies—bullets taste the same)


When do we pause
Listen to the screams

The screams of a mother baring soul to lover
             Bearing child,
              Bearing flowers to the graves forgotten
                  Thru the starry skies of Ursa Major
                        Thru shadowy forbearance she meets the honey dawn

Bears another day without…

But she cannot bear
        to break
        to bend
        to relinquish
               her wordless 
Screaming voice 
     to join the
Deep-Down
    Skulking
         Bloody
She-bear
Anger toward her G_d.