i can take a stand on knowing 

like soldiers on a numbered hill 

i can go over the top on what i believe

but even an imagination exploding with 

limb-littered trenches – engorged rats 

soldiers shrieking…bayonets stuck between their ribs 

horses hung up in trees and melted over branches

like a Salvador Dali scene

(the truth is shrapnel sticking in my convictions)

i don’t know the 

first thing about war 

 

i have read about PTSD 

seen blown-out tanks and villages and cities on the news 

read war novels that tell me war is hell but 

i don’t know 

anything about war 

i’ve been fascinated and horrified by documentaries 

and movies 

mostly movies…

‍

Schindler’s List

Saving Private Ryan

Full Metal Jacket

To End All Wars

‍

but i still know nothing about war

i remember the Gulf War (August 2, 1990 to February 28, 1991) saw parts of it live on tv 

heard people say it looks like a video game 

(especially the night shots: green flashes flying at some enemy)

i marched – i mean, walked 

in protest against that war with others 

on a peace walk from here to there 

yet i don’t know anything about war 

i once thought i did - talked about it and against it like i knew 

even now i say Jesus and Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

and that i don’t believe in war 

‍

i hope i know something about peace but when 

people talk about war - that thing

i know nothing about

i just want to 

bug out

withdraw 

fall back 

retreat

‍

i know what the words mean but 

i don’t know [anything] about war

‍

Mick Friesen is a high school English teacher at W. C. Miller Collegiate in Altona, Manitoba. Over the course of many years of teaching poetry, it has slowly become an avocation. Inspiration for his poems is found in everyday minutiae, where even a fragmented conversation, or seemingly mundane physical detail, become sources of creativity. At other times, that inspiration is found in reading the literary and philosophical reflections of others. His worldview has been shaped significantly by the Anabaptist-Mennonite story and various teachers, friends, and family members who are also part of this tradition.

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