ARES/MARS

For those of us who loathe war and bullies with the same intensity.

By V.B. Price

Snake brain, slaughterer,
it’s you who thought to make

napalm stick under water,
You who flew the nightmare planes

into the nightmare buildings, who budgeted
plastic land mines for blowing off feet.

It’s you, not Strangelove the inventor.
Bodies are troughs for you.

So why are you loved by The Lover,
Aphrodite? Are giants all cuddly

when caught on their La-Z-Boy sofas,
their teeth in a cup,

wearing their scuff-about slippers?
What’s with it,

this loving of dangerous men?
Does she just adore Your

reflex, true abandon?
It’s hypocritical to blame you.

Each of us might need you
if some brutal bastard’s gone berserk

and all we can do
is go for his eyeballs

and balls, and fight to the end
with no end but his.

Mostly, though, we need to keep culture on,
zipped up, Athena combing our hair

and telling us exactly
how to cream You, bowl You over

with elegant force,
You for whom

charred wounds
are a pheromone.

The Spartans knew.
No hecatombs of oxen for You;

only a human barbecue would do.
Everyone hates you

until they need you.
Then they pray when you’re through

they won’t hear your teeth on their bones.
You’re all about

nothing
in between.

That’s why
we may win

with your gorging,
but your shit won’t come out of our souls.

We stink with You, shamed,
suicidal,

worth
less.

You’re useless
for all tasks but one

Torn shreds
and pieces of us — indecipherable

gore —
that’s all you’ve ever done.