After a Photo of a House in Syria

Last week, I heard Caleb "The Negro Artist" Rainey read several spoken word poems at the ArtHaus Poetry Slam. One of them was in a form whose name I cannot remember, but it sounded intriguing: Begin each line with an important word from the line above. The poem he read had a circular quality, partly because of the content, but also because the form, itself, looped the poem backward as it moved forward, as if it were a thread and each line was a stitch.

I used a line by Wisława Szymborska (italicized) as a seed for this poem. The poem is partly ekphrastic, too, as it is based on a photo.

After a Photo of a House in Syria
– borrowing a line from Wisława Szymborska

After every war someone has to tidy up -- 
War being the hammer that smashes things --
Smashes them like that street or this building both bombed,
Bombed into the Stone Age. Smoke rises into a clear, blue sky.
Smoke, thick and black, pours from an apartment building, the
Apartment of a man who sits with his face in his hands
Sits on the curb by his bombed-out house, a
House filled with smoke when the fire consumed his life.
Consumed by this fate, he sits, face in hands, just the top of his head visible. On
Top of the rubble a woman shoves part of a broken wall and heaves it aside. This
Broken woman lifts the limp body of her young son from the rubble. The
Sun shines brightly and smoke pours from an old building. Near the man, an
Old woman and old man lift a slab of concrete from the street into a cart. The
Cart filled with rubble. After resting, they return to their work.
After every war someone has to tidy up.
Up above, the smoke hangs like a cloud in the clear, blue sky.

– steve peterson