[Poem] Recovering From War

There is a deficit of contact.

To touch is to risk.

To trust contradicts wisdom,
So ignorance prevails.
Absent truths (memories)
Elicit abundant lusts
Hammered
With gold, rose and incense
To reform states we fear
May rebuild to rewind time
But not remember:

How we failed the first time
That we now have fewer
To remember with

As we rebuild to recover
Some things terrible

Some, less so.

-Originally appeared in On The Other Side Of The Eye, 2007