Jacques-Louis David’s The Intervention of the Sabine Women
A Kind of Peace

Hersilia (kind of) comes to the rescue,
(kind of) stopping the violence, a truce
for these two, (kind of) finding a (kind of) peace,
but only kind of because they loose
the chaos of invasion on the town
and the only thing she can reasonably
prevent is the death of these family
members as the city is burned down.
And David, who had participated
in the terrors, who had guillotined
so many, paints a (kind of) loving forgiveness
between these two men who (kind of) hated
each other but who had actually burned
with a sexual bloodlust that seemed endless.

***

Jacques-Louis David’s The Intervention of the Sabine Women
The Infants

The babies lying on David’s field
of battle seem alone in knowing what
is happening. They stare directly at
us, as if to say they know what
we’re thinking, and they can see us standing
doing nothing to stop this in their world
or ours, and they blame us, and we could
end all of it if we ever bothered trying.
It reminds me of some horror films I saw
where the babies could see the dead all
around, and we are the ghosts here; they watch
us, knowing our inadequacies, how
we have turned everything into spectacle,
how we’ve indulged in this sick cult of death.

***

John Brantingham was Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks’ first poet laureate. His work has been featured in hundreds of magazines. He has twenty-one books of poetry, memoir, and fiction including his latest, Life: Orange to Pear (Bamboo Dart Press) and Kitkitdizzi (Bamboo Dart Press). He lives in Jamestown, New York.