they called it a bad warthey called it the good war they said we wonthey said we almost didthey said we never wouldthey said we never should have called it a war
some said it costone president his lifeand another, his presidency
they called that war a dirty warthey called rape a war crimethey called war crimes, rapethey called war a crimethey called that neighborhood a war zone
they zoned it for rosesbut it explodedso they called it dead they called it off
and by the beach poisoned by warheads they called your name and you looked back one war torn day
and wept
Leslie Simon grew up on Chicago's South Side and founded Poetry for the People at City College of San Francisco in 1975. Her publications include Jazz/ is for white girls, too (Poetry for the People), i rise/ you riz/ we born (Artaud's Elbow), High Desire (Wingbow Press), Collisions and Transformations (Coffee House Press), A Music I No Longer Heard: The Early Death of a Parent, with Jan Johnson Drantell (Simon and Schuster), and The Divine Comic (Spuyten Duyvil Publishing).
