The War on NIghtlife

Pressing dead stars into sky
I wonder what kind of nightlife
is availible to those in wartime.

Do they sit in tenaments
with peach wallpaper peeling
around half-broken windows,
drinking vodka to the point
of poisoning?

Or are they brave Brits
hunkered in the subway
with jokes, such as
"Oh, I do wonder
what the poor people
are doing tonight"
as the German bombs
blow enclaves into cobbled streets
and crumple another
council tenancy.

I like to think
that they worship
on prayer mats,
heads pressed to the shuddering earth
praying for America
to change its religon
from weapons to a vision
as tanks crumble dead animals
on the boulevard, commanders
stealing the power of night.

But you know it is worse
than this.
Grenades lobbed through curtains,
a child with a chinese assualt rifle,
and a blonde haired doll
laying on top of a fragmentation mine.
Curfew is at sundown,
the bars and dance clubs
are catacombs
and the only music
is in the tempo of machine guns,
good for making corpses dance.