There Is No Armor We Can Wear

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is terrorism in memory of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

Today’s poem is about the impossibility of stopping every terrorist bent on destruction.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

There is no armor we can wear,

No wall or fortress we can build,

No force of arms, no shield of fear

To equal what the heart has willed.

No wall or fortress we can build

Can stop a soul on vengeance bent,

Can equal what the heart has willed,

A purpose pure, of dark intent.

Can stop a soul on vengeance bent,

Death for death and pain for pain,

A purpose pure, of dark intent

To kill for grace and not for gain.

Death for death and pain for pain:

The lust to purge oneself of grief,

To kill for grace and not for gain

That anguish might find some relief.

The lust to purge oneself of grief

Must yield in turn an answering lust.

That anguish might find some relief,

We'd turn an Eden into dust.

Must yield in turn an answering lust,

Hate to hate set groove on groove.

We'd turn an Eden into dust

To defeat the love that terror moves.

Hate to hate set groove on groove,

No force of arms, no shield of fear:

To defeat the love that terror moves

There is no armor we can wear.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/ther19.html. For more poems about terrorism and 911, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/terrorism911poems.html .

This week’s theme: Terrorism

September 11: So Did You Die of History

September 12: Soldiers Kill, for That Is Their Profession

September 13: There Is No Armor We Can Wear