Poetry by Candice Louisa Daquin

POTENTIAL PEACE BENEATH THE WAR

Does humanity, as a concept
exist in a vacuum?
Where humble sentience is 
dislocated in the parched throat of self-interest? 
Where does the common man find solace?
Lost moniker describing individuals seeking equity 
in twitching furnace of somnambulist society,
their labour rebuked for birth right or whimsy,
inequality sewn into flimsy lapel, the holes of their shoes
before any nation’s birth is death; for what nationality
does anyone possess? Or own? What land is
ours or yours? What power? What skin? 
What impotent sieve tries to retain enough water before the monsoon shifts? 
Drunk, before any of us knew we could protest
what was never going to be given freely --
that division of us all, made clay, made stalagmite
what are anyone’s true wishes? Who hears? 
When war makers fabricate the mould and send 
into battle, scolded and uncooked, their children?
What does the crowing babe think; when war flies
its planes and machines overhead? Raining red loss 
upon the downtrodden, seeking only, meagre sense of existing --
hardly able to drag their weary bodies to vote
nor contemplate chess pieces above artificial stations.
Perhaps Marx had a point, the silver infusion
of distraction, an ultimate opiate, or
is it just our water-borne natures? If there is such
collective nature? To fight in dust -- swirl until we’re tired
then lay our guns down and pick on each other
with weary, blooded fists. Is anything appeased in our
vain battles or are mere silly devils playing ruined
games on a board where nobody watches?
Save the ember curl of time, reminding all;
Those who do not remember history
are bound, to repeat its grievous wounds. 
Then: Break free mockingbird 
find your own voice, not choked by common
dust, for we are all, for we all can find 
potential peace beneath the war. 

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Candice Louisa Daquin is a Psychotherapist and Editor, having worked in Europe, Canada and the USA. Daquins own work is also published widely, she has written five books of poetry, the last published by Finishing Line Press called Pinch the Lock. Her website is www thefeatheredsleep.com

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