“The Wars” by Howard Moss [pg. 146]

What came first to my mind is the number of parallels drawn between the restaurant and war zone scenes. In particular, the first and second verses mirror each other. They both are very lengthy questions. I guess it is a complex thought of the speaker as he related the ideas of the “polite wars” to real ones. There is mention of China in both verses. The first verse takes place in a Chinese restaurant while the second one takes place in an Asian rural village. In doing this, the speaker is comparing the people in the restaurant to the people in the field. In the restaurant verse, the speaker gives the image of a red lamp and parallels it to a red moon. The red lamp is symbolic of good luck but describing it as “blood-red” gives the image of something heavier. The same goes with the “blood-red moon”: the feeling of death hangs in the air. I think there is a tale that says the moon is red when blood is spilled. The author uses this idea through his poem. He uses numerous parallel ideas and structure to relate the two stanzas. The “terrible cries” of the second stanza seemed to echo in the first one as I read the poem again. The last verse switches from line to line with the restaurant and village. By doing so, the idea of the war is kept fresh in the mind as the “war” at the restaurant is occurring. The two ideas set up the atmosphere for each other; they are sort of symbiotic. One part is about a hellish killing of people while the other is about the constant chaos that occurs daily.