by Daniel Wilcox
“Baghdad is a huge camp, man. American didn’t bring democracy. It brought walls.”
Yousif al-Timimi in National Geographic July 2011
There’s something in man, uh human
That loves a wall…
Jerusalem
China
Hadrian
Mellah
Venice
Pale
Richmond...well,
An upside-down
Walled trench;
Speaking of
‘Somme’
Others…
Warsaw
Berlin
Panmunjom
Ben Hai...a river wall,
Selma
Belfast
Kashmir
Baghdad
Gaza
Yuma…ah finally a rime,
‘Add’ nauseam
And
Two kinds of mortars
Bricks ‘unmortified’
Mortgaging tomorrow for yesterday;
Good ‘fencing’, uh yes…
Daniel Wilcox’s writing has appeared in many magazines including The Danforth Review, The Write Room, and The Copperfield Review. His book Dark Energy was published by Diminuendo Press. Before that he hiked through Cal State University Long Beach (Creative Writing), Montana, Pennsylvania, Europe, Palestine/Israel, and Arizona. He lives with his wife on the central coast of California.
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