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poetry Withdrawal Symptoms

“I’ve been appalled but not surprised,” writes poet Dave Bonta, criticizing “the slanted coverage of the U.S. and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan” by media war hawks.

Withdrawal Symptoms

By Dave Bonta

imperial sunset

my shadow

waving back

one by one the stars

of generals

 

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on the evening news

telling us

it's morning

giving air support

to ghost soldiers

what better hell

have we bombed

into existence

moon cradling that darkness

called earthshine

Dave Bonta (https://davebonta.com) is the author most recently of Failed State: Haibun (Via

Negativa Books, 2021) and Ice Mountain: An Elegy (Phoenicia Publishing, 2017). He is 39 and a half years into a daily erasure poetry project based on the Diary of Samuel Pepys.