Arlene Corwin Poetry

     What Did He Think?

What did he think?
They’d sink into the drink*
Without a word or fight?

They’d go into the night
So frightened
They’d be paralysed,
Giving him the liberty to neutralise
By brutalising everyone:
Child, woman, man?

Scandalized, depersonalised, despised.
He scorns and falsely propagandises
When he could have won a peace prize
If he’d only talked like civilised men talk
While looking into one another’s eyes
With candor.

When he has gone
There’ll be no shrine,
Hardly a headstone, plaque or moan.
What did he think?

Did he ever think?
What Did He Think? 317.2022 War Book; Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin
*(the drink) informal the drink: the sea, the ocean, the water; informal the briny, Davy Jones’s locker; literary the deep.