Issue 30, Remnants

Occupy Fringe: A Poem

by Alan S. Kleiman • 11.16.2011

How We Got Peace At Last

Three hundred angels sang Hallelujah
While the birds ate porridge.
Never have I seen such a songfest
Said the King to the Queen.
Put a humble blackbird first
And we shall have plums
Said the Prince.

Chaos reigned among the land
In the US-Libya decision room.
Send planes missiles bombs
The priest cried.

And sure enough,
Just like that
Planes soared!
Missiles slammed buildings!
Bombs exploded bridges and heads!
And chaos reigned among the land
And here at home as well
Here at home as well.

(Editor’s note: For as long as it takes, Fringe is giving over its blog to original work inspired by the Occupy protests. Send your essays, poetry, short stories, artwork, photography and whatever else you’ve got, including questions, to FringeTheMagazine@gmail.com. See guidelines here, and catch up with previous posts.)

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Alan S. Kleiman

Alan S. Kleiman

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Alan S. Kleiman’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Verse Wisconsin, The Criterion, The Bicycle Review, Pyrta, Eskimo Pie, and The Montucky Review. He lives in New York City and works as an attorney. When not practicing law or writing, he spends as much time as he can in the open air.


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Comments Feed7 comments
  • BB • Wednesday, November 16, 2011 • at 3:24 pm

    A pretty good poem! Wonderfully articulated and poignant imagery!BB

  • Adrian • Wednesday, November 16, 2011 • at 10:55 pm

    Terrific, sour-sweet verse – these are the times

  • marina • Thursday, November 17, 2011 • at 12:04 am

    Great poem – condensed, strong and touches “home”. Love it.

  • Jim • Thursday, November 17, 2011 • at 3:25 am

    What really hit home is that we didn’t keep the war off of American soil, and we can not isolate ourselves as Americans from the political or economic woes of the world around us.

  • Irina Dimitric • Thursday, November 17, 2011 • at 9:32 pm

    Once upon a time there were rocks , spears, lances and horses, now we have planes and bombs,and Nations, as always, go to war with the Priest’s blessing. Great poem.

  • st janah • Friday, November 18, 2011 • at 1:13 am

    Very good poetry! Nice narrate.

  • missb • Sunday, November 20, 2011 • at 6:10 am

    it feels like being under an attack from the air… angels, birds and blackbirds are rejoined by planes, missiles and bombs… inexorable but brillant sliding…

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