"Blood: Black Burned Oil of the Race" (a decima for peace)

Blood: Black Burned Oil of the Race
– a “décima” for peace

for E.V.


That which happened in the Temple
Of Oil happens everywhere.
All enchanted. All drunk from the
Other – all for nothing, for
No one. For peace – the other side,
Way of Gold: all for all. Nothing
For one, the few with mountains of
Everything: the blood; birds, dead from
The poverty; the shadow of
Soul; the race, a burned bone, the bone

Stripped of desire, the bone dry
From witness; hand in the empty
Air and full of salutations
For life. Look. All that is! All that is
Burning! And breaking like so many
Hearts. Listen! You with the fist of
Flesh and Brotherhood. Open it,
Already you play the guitar of
Resistence, the power of all.
Power of nothing. Power of zero.

Power of the water drop by
Drop and side by side, hand to fist
To Sister, Brother. They love those
That love nothing. Buy it! Nothing
Made from nothing more than hunger
And the blows of desperation
Or the wee drops of brains raining
On the streets and black windows,
Small mirrors from the street children
like depleted uranium

Deleted in this final Book
Of Hope – basket of hope, woven
Weaving of love, Contra-Buyer,
Of root and “NO!”



c Lorna Dee Cervantes
from How Far's the War
Book I in Drive: The First Quartet