Kathleen Hellen
war collects
i.
O, Joan. Raped, disfigured. You who dressed in the power of men.
You, sent by god to spur the indecisive, make them radiant.
Let my standard fly. Let me ride into the chaos, toward the fortress where I send my arrows.
Help me to restore what is legitimate. Without desire.
Nothing can break the unbreakable spirit.
ii.
O, Yoko. You, who stunt domestic objects. You, with Sumi brushes that disrupt linguistic logic.
You, who repairs what is broken, as if this art were golden.
Help me to imagine love repaired.
A thousand suns that light the world.
The WAR IS (ONLY) OVER!
if [we]want it—
“These poems are companioned as collects or prayers meant to invoke the principle of action, as it intends toward justice, and the practice of art, as it intends toward peace. The form approximates the pattern developed in the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, with the central difference being the address is not to God but to the character of the feminine.” —Kathleen Hellen
Kathleen Hellen is the recipient of the James Still Award, the Thomas Merton Prize for Poetry of the Sacred, and prizes from the H.O.W. Journal and Washington Square Review. Her debut collection Umberto’s Night won the poetry prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House. She is the author of The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin, Meet Me at the Bottom, and two chapbooks.