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Patriotic Poem Rafael Campo december 2004 after Neruda The war on words had been declared. A voice was now considered dangerous, and could be conWscated by police. A metaphor lay beaten in the street while moonlight bathed it in white tears. The war on words had been declared, in language none could contradict. A lie ran naked through the capital, while onlookers looked on. It seemed that everything stopped making sense: the punctuation of the traªc lights, the thudding sound of dictionaries shut, the heavy heart the poet wore to bed for love. The war on words had been declared. A lullaby deWed the curfew, night close in around it like swaddling clothes. A girl spelled “moratorium” in school; the next day she was dead, her hands sawn o¤ as punishment. The war on words had been declared. Soon, silence stole over the land, broken only by the piercing protest of car alarms set o¤ by no one’s touch, a neighbor’s wailing weed-whacker, a song that once remembered one cannot get out of one’s head. war on words declared cried out the evening paper, soundlessly, too late— the President was on TV to say we had won, we had won, we had won. 238 part 11 parading poetry ...

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