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Indefensible

In East Nuristan
The FOB named
For the fallen
Is a bad omen
For the rising.

Men slid down
The mountain.
With the snow,
Beads dripping
Icy blood into
The glacial waters
Of the Bashgal.

The river fed
The valley below.
Men fed bullets
Into magazines,
Into weapons,
Into wounds.

As the dead
Were the fed
Into Apaches.
To Bagram,
To Germany,
To Walter Reed.

No Chinooks;
Only single
Blade space.
No banks,
Only buddy
Transfusions.
Out and In.

Surging trade,
Cash, Blood,
Adrenaline,
Democracy.
Nothing lasts.
Not the funds,
Not the shura,
And not peace.

As they tried
To defend the
Indefensible.
From a fishbowl
Between two
Dying worlds.

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Sixth of June- They Came on!

The Sixth of June- D-Day, Overlord.
Words spoken in reverent whispers between old soldiers,
The forces of Liberty
Set forth on the old continent,
To make the world safe for democracy
For the second time in a quarter century.

As the parachutes billowed in the early hours,
And the overloaded gliders slammed into the ground,
As the bombers laid out rolling thunder,
And the fighters strafed the shore,
As the thunder from destroyers, cruisers, and battleships,
Fell as barrages against the shore,
The landing craft came in,
Wave upon wave, upon wave.

From the pillboxes and prepared positions
Lead and death flowed down in fiery rivulets.
Through the dying and the dead,
The men came on.
In sputtered starts and stops with grim, determination.
They came on.
Despite the carnage and the chaos,
They came on.
First to the water’s edge then the bloody, battered beach;
Next the seawall, the cliffs, and then breakout.
They came on.
Through village, hedgerow, and town,
They came on.
Though the fight was not finished,
There was still much to come
Through Cherbourg, St. Lo, Caen, Falaise, Argentan, Paris,
They Came on.
Until the Reich was broken
By the hammer and the sickle and the bulldog and the eagle.
Still they came on.

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A Dead Star

Hajis traveling, halted
To whet crows’ feet.
We’d grown too old
Squinting at the sun.

The pilgrimage made
Strangers bedfellows,
And marriages to a cause
If not each other.

But we spoke the same
Inarticulate tongue
That can only be
Transcribed by heartlight,
Illuminated by hands,
Onto the soft vellum,
Leaving indelible ink
On ephemeral skin.

Our love was a dead star,
Over before we knew it.
But it shone through us
Even after. Ever after.

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Carry On

This morning’s migraine

Is the concussive,

Residual-night-before.

 

Three disappeared.

Only two shoes

Found in the dirt.

 

In the hall, a cloth diaper

Erases the bloody smear

Where movement ended.

 

Prayer call punctuated

By yelling, a game,

On the short wave.

 

Life leaves us.

You either carry on

Or are carried out.

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What You Left

Running in fields
of corn, or winter
Deer in the wheat.

Heavy boot down
The wire buzzing,
Through the gap.

Door busted in
The drafted cabin,
Stored past traps

Old but alive still,
With tetanus teeth,
Enough to kill.

Teenagers know
No trespassing.
We are born to it.

But the land belongs
Only to the beasts,
And blackhawks,

And those who
Can defend it.
While they can.

A revolving port
Of barbs and
Constitutions.

Shoot and run.
Bandages. Run.
Red. Again.

You run the dust
Of deserts, but
The long grasses

Brush your belly,
Stirring the insides
Pounding.

Demanding
You return.
To what you left
-In Kansas.