LOVING OUR ENEMY

I come to my formidable foe

waving a white flag, put my arm around

his shoulder, sidestepping the bloody fangs

that want to crush me in the ground.

In his warped snarl, I will surely find

a thread of tenderness.

Can we bury the blood-soaked hatchet

and let pus-filled bygones be bygones?

The road to reconciliation

must be paved with loving intensions.

Let’s agree on a truce, with no one pissing

on my parade of good will.

No more ziggurats of flaming arrows

zigzagging my way, no more tit for tat,

eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.

To soften his gnarled root of bitterness,

I’ll untangle his fraudulent use of words,

and give him a jade plaque of the Golden Rule.

His brain is in a knot that speaks in a fog

of hieroglyphics.

We must listen to the weeping skeletons

and whistling of the dead

trying to warn us to asphyxiate all the malice

before the gathering darkness.

He wouldn’t be so filled with hate

if he weren’t hurting more than me.

We are all more human than otherwise.

All we have to do is be kind to each other.

I love him and wish him great happiness.

If he stops the bombs and beheadings,

the music of our bones can harmonize

and he will become my friend.