Poetry

Nikola Tasic photo

By

JD DeHart

I Supposed

that the world was kinder,

that these pages of violence

were only in history books.

I know, I know, a plush

and guarded vision.  I thought

hate was somehow washed

away in the Civil Rights

movement.  A boy, a child

I was.

Of course, now I’m not so

sure, now I see otherwise,

and the question has lingered

in my mind for the past year:

How will I show love in my

life, and when I say I am

a Christian what does that

mean?  Am I lumped together

with others and, if so, should

I choose another word?

Belly

I dreamed he was in

the belly of a creature

that could only be a tank.

Surrounded by metal

and several feet down,

a camouflage Jonah –

rocked and moved

by stirrings not his own,

subject to the perambulation

of the larger ideology

that engulfed him, surrounded

by mountains of smoke.

JD DeHart

JD DeHart is a writer and teacher. His chapbook,The Truth About Snails, is available from RedDashboard.