War (Nested Landays)

Each stanza within this poem is an individual landays which I nested with other individual landays to make a longer poem focusing on a single topic.

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I am drawn to your crystal clear eyes

For its there I find truth, peace and love in abundance

,

Were it not for you I would perish

Swallowed up by the worlds lack of humanity

.

Your tender touch is a reminder

That goodness surely does exist in spite of our faults

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My hope is for better days ahead

Where man finally faces the error of his ways

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Would not a lasting peace serve us all

Ending our torrential thirst for never ending war

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~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

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Authors Note: A landays is form of folk poetry from Afghanistan. Meant to be recited or sung aloud, and frequently anonymous, the form is a couplet comprised of 22 syllables. The first line has 9 syllables and the second line 13 syllables. Landays end on “ma” or “na” sounds and treat themes such as love, grief, homeland, war, and separation. See Eliza Griswold’s extensive reporting on the form in the June 2013 issue of Poetry, in which she explains how the form was created by and for the more than 20 million Pashtun women who span the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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The ending on “ma” or “na” sounds applies to the Pashtun language and was disregarded in English.  Each stanza within this poem is an individual landays which I nested with other individual landays to make a longer poem focusing on a single topic.

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