We Are at War
Gale Burns

and now we know we always were. Slaves
to the appearance of things, fooled by the promise of permanence,
the accumulation of trappings, the celebration of this:

the first generation kept from battle, soft hands, suckled, suckling still.
But signs were all around: the mental patient consigned to weeks of sleep;
the silted air; suburban privet clipped to re-assure;

and then the war within: to raise a voice, our own; to reconfigure now,
even to like another – these struggles curb us still, but out of silo, till we,
the bribed, cannot pretend: with chassis torn away, the engine belches,

pumping, spewing oil. When shelves are bare and streets quiver, and
are wrenched from life by eagle weapons, the trees stand bright, and though
we cannot sleep, each day has imminence. Throw yourself upon the time

ambivalence relieved; Beirut, Belfast our teachers now. Even our ancestors,
staring from gilt frames, knew more than we – at war, and now we’re sure
we always were, for what was sent abroad is recompensed, and though

the fear is such we hardly breathe, at last time moves just as it should in one long stream;
the dam is burst, and all the horses of the king, and all his men, 
they’ll never hold this sclerotic world intact again.

Gale Burns is a writer in residence at both the Kingston Writing School, Kingston University London, and Sydenham Arts Festival. He convenes the Shuffle poetry series in London, and was a 2012 Hawthornden Fellow. His work has been translated into French and Slovenian.

Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter.
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