1864
L.
Ward Abel
My
bed is a soaking topography;
I am squall across this night plain,
combing my mind for an answer
to war, war that tears at fringes.
And it comes to me.
1864.
Atlanta. Petersburg.
Grant. Sherman. Lincoln
in the throws of
stalemate. Or worse.
Suits for peace at any cost,
impossibilities raining down
on already muddy boulevards.
Never at a lower point
than that hellish summer. Today. 1864.
Baghdad and beyond.
The final
long
campaign stands at the ready.
St. John chooses the hymn.
***
Poet,
composer of music (Max Able / Abel, Rawls & Hayes) and spoken-word
performer (Scapeweavel), L. Ward Abel lives in rural Georgia,
and has been widely published in the U.S., Europe and Asia, including
White Pelican Review, The Pedestal, Versal (Netherlands),
Juked, Angel Face, OpenWide (UK) , Ink Pot, Texas Poetry
Journal, Kritya (India), Words-Myth, others. His chapbook,
Peach Box and Verge, has been published by Little Poem
Press. Twenty of his poems are featured, along with an interview,
in a recent print issue of erbacce (UK). His new full book
of poems, Jonesing For Byzantium, has just been published
at UK Authors Press (London).
©
L. Ward Abel