As Samawah
The river ignored us.
Tracer fire etched back and forth.
The irony of an RPG stuck in a date tree.
Day and night is only the dumping of mortar
rounds and artillery into them. Invisible
to all except us, the AC-130’s cast
their eye of death upon them.
We watch them die. We smoke and eat Skittles.
My Brother in the VFW
My left thumb is calloused
from grading essays. I’d like to say
it was from writing in general, but
to be honest it’s just from criticism.
It’s almost five and dark already.
Two years ago I would have been all
gritted teeth and gray pencil shavings, a
latent headache knocking at the door,
pining for the first drink’s calm lick
down my spine, my gullet.
Instead I call my brother, who
leaves his cell phone to cry
at home, back in his apartment
crammed like a mouth full of sand
with dusty guns, small lead soldiers,
and books piled to the door
under a bust of Alexander.
He just wants to go
to a room with no windows.
I’ve done my research
and so I know for a queasy fact
that there’s a reason why bars
have stools, not benches.
Personal orbits. The future is red vinyl
and foggy mirrors ringed by Xmas lights
kept up all year long. I hear the puff
of air as the door opens, and the smell
that calls itself escape but is really despair.
I know the shadow of the door and the sun
that never makes it to the puddles on the counter.
I can smell the rag the man with a mirror to his back
squeezes into foam, into new nightmares.
At 6, my brother had recurring night terrors
of a bony finger beckoning to him.
He said it wasn’t a ghost. He said
it wasn’t anything he could control.
As a child my brother could get out
of anything-cribs, punishments,
eating his peas, violin lessons-
but he can’t get out of this. He will never get out of this.
Home
What do you think, should we be over there? He asks Me,
and what the fuck am I supposed to say, so I nod my head,
do my shot, and get the tab. My stomach on fire and the
booze hasn’t even hit me yet. Small town protests,
college kids and Hummers with Oakley stickers,
Starbucks and maple leaves in ascendance in Pennsylvania.
Can’t sleep again: that downtime tattoo stitched in blood.
Tracers arc through the air. The night stands over us,
and God’s voice drifts, his message repeating over and over.
Kerosene stoves casting their glow provide the night’s burnt offering.
Cold stiletto fingers wrap around RPGs, mortars, and AK’s.
They circle our compound, impatient for Death. My ex-wife
rolls over and tells me to shut up. With Fire for effect
ringing in my ears, I wait a long time, and whisper okay.
Alastor
You stitching vagrant elisions
of flesh, of lead, sling barrel of the gun.
You burying the birds up to black necks
till fricative, the earth an alb for each.
You in the flea’s eye, the rat, new plague.
You in the sound of the pen on the page
of the note of the suicide, of the shape
on the tile, dark blister, this endemic,
its vector implausible, its voice nearly mad.
You squatting by prisoners, scratching
old rashes, your palm on the burlap.
Duct tape in a stage door. Listen:
We are unspooling in front of you.
All you want to do is close your eyes,
but we glue them open. We tug out
vats of blood till you raise your head
like a dog, but cling you back
with a bald sword. You rub up
against its tang, but we will not budge.
You can show us all the bombs
sewn into bloated stomachs, you can hold
up pale arms and scream rape to the stars.
You can even tell us the answer,
but we’ll never let you drink.
Their Faylaka
Six thirty in the morning and I am pissing on the ruins
of a temple built by Alexander. 300 BC and now.
We rehearse over and over like ants in a row
how to move through their neighborhoods;
we learn how to feel our way through their dark,
feel our way through their houses. At night we sit
on the empty beach. Their port lights blink.
Their stars are different here.
Patrol
Your vest’s Kevlar serpent tongue cuts your neck again.
Sweat mingles with blood and you are distracted.
One foot in front of the other,
thumb on selector switch,
trigger finger on the magazine well.
Scan left…right; check six, back to twelve.
Commo check with the TOC,
halt: take a knee.
Baby crying, close now,
dog nosing through trash,
shivering street light…too much.
Somewhere, they are watching, waiting.
On your feet, soldier. Keep your distance,
nice and easy…don’t push it. Push the seconds
turning into hours and the moon long gone.
My/your hand slips over the steel of the hesco
and you are home. Streaming Marlboro tobacco
makes a pungent dragon of your nostrils,
then it’s bottled piss-warm water and your rack.
Latrine Duty
A plywood coffin with three holes and toilet seats is our shitter.
Three matching halves of fifty-gallon drums are lined up underneath.
I volunteer to burn shit with Dave. Three five-gallon JP8 cans,
matches and a stick to stir it and we are in business.
A little revenge on the flies that have been biting my ass.
We stand around, smoking and burning shit for the better part
of the afternoon, watching EOD mushroom clouds in the distance.
Fedayeen
He never saw it coming. 7.62 rounds
stitched their way through his torso,
working diagonally up to his shoulder.
As we drove past him I looked deep
into his open mouth, some mute protest,
the red and white headscarf tossed aside.
His weapon was filthy, lying in the culvert
next to him. Dust that covers dust in this country.
I tell Braun to keep driving, his head and eyes
fixed forward, concentrating on the job at hand.
The vehicle lurches forward again, and as I look
back one of the Joes in the LMTV behind us
spits tobacco on the body.
I don’t stop laughing for half an hour.
Movie Night
«Office Space» for the third time this month
and the air is stale cigarette smoke and B.O.
The RPG chews its way through the gym the Joes have built
and detonates. We take to the roof, pulse of adrenaline,
to give some back to the asshole who has spoiled our movie.
My mouth goes dry as I move from position to position
on the roof. Dave tells me to keep down and as usual
I ignore him. That fuckin thing came right over my head
gap-toothed Daly says with a grin. Four hours later,
it’s over. Harbottle has been shot in the ass.
I lie back on my cot, walk out of one dream and into another.
* * *
Military Jargon Decoded
- AC-130 = A heavily-armed ground attack airplane
- AK’s = Short for Automat Kalashnikov Model 1947, the AK-47, small arm of the enemy
- COMMO CHECK = Radio Check
- EOD = Explosive Ordnance Demolition
- FIRE FOR EFFECT = Artillery Command for all batteries to fire on a target at once
- HESCO = Steel Barrier that can be filled with earth and used as a barrier
- JOES = Slang for Joe Private, the lower enlisted
- JP-8 CANS = Jet propulsion fuel cans
- LMTV = Light Maneuverable Transportation Vehicle, a Truck
- MRE = Meal Ready To Eat, The Good Stuff
- PRO-MASKS = Short For Protective Mask
- AN-PVS-14 = Night Vision Device
- RPG = A rocket-propelled grenade
- SCUDS = A series of tactical ballistic missiles developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War and exported widely to other countries
- TOC = Tactical Operations Center, The Headquarters
Acknowledgements
My thanks to the editors of these publications, where the following poems first appeared:
- «GI Joes»-Softblow
- «My Brother in the VFW»-Apple Valley Review