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Poem Without A Title
by Charles Simic
I say to the lead
Why did you let yourself
Be cast into a bullet?
Have you forgotten the alchemists?
Have you given up hope
In turning into gold?

Nobody answers.
Lead. Bullet. With names
Such as these
The sleep is deep and long.

In a recurring dream, we implore the menacing men in red tunics to lay down their arms.
At first, they resist and then slowly, they begin to set down the gas nozzles with which they had tethered the land, holding it hostage.

The pile grew into a precipitous mountain and when like Icarus, it reached the sun, melted into a lake of liquid metal.

In silence, the community came out as one and fashioned melodious gongs and other musical instruments from the molten metal.

The sound was magical and the men in red robes, who had witnessed such incredible alchemy, knew they had done the right thing.