Posted on

Managing Expectations

 

The movers come tomorrow.
I wipe January’s to-do list from the white board
We never got around to updating.

The plans we made linger,
The ghosts of the great potential the new year
Laid out before us.

Each tick mark faithfully declining
Until, then, the halt of forward momentum. The
Days that stopped.

Perhaps next year, next duty station
Next month, next KD billet, next school year, next race,
Next rest stop, next tick mark on the list.

The movers come tomorrow.
I’ll call you from the road.

Posted on

Battledress

Under Pressure

From the square plots,

Of clipped Kentucky rye,

And perfect planters,

Where porch colors fly.

To solace in the weeds,

Growing, flowing, refuse,

In between the cracks,

Of neglect and abuse.  

“Gone native” they say,

As if it’s progress undone.

But nothing is ironed here,

Except the will to be one.

Posted on

Humanity (choose your own adventure)

Rescue

Can we reach our better side
bringing hard work to new visions
or are we only fight or flight?

Thoughts and prayers sent up the flue
papering over our divisions
all the hate we thought was through

We are made of contradiction
making peace is part of us
but fighting wars is our tradition

We are conflicted, we are still one
a little hope would be a plus
it seems so long ere the day is done

We can act with malice and spite
or press forgiveness to our hearts
fighting upwards to the light

Isolation in a divided nation
our brains are made for social smarts
stewing in our own frustration

All alone in our four walls
will our future be secure
drifting sadly through drafty halls

Turn to the very last page
willful pique or mindless cure
will it be peace or curdled rage?

Posted on

Wounded (She Doesn’t Read My Poems)


My wife doesn’t read my poems
Unless I write on light, airy, happy things
I really don’t blame her
She was there in the dark times
And watched me live through them
She doesn’t enjoy watching
Me rip open old wounds
To see if the maggots
Are still lingering inside
She doesn’t know
The names of my demons
But she knows their sounds-
A scream out from my sleep
She knows how they feel-
As I alternate between clawing at her
And pushing her out of bed
To get her down
Below the line of fire
Another soldier to save
From the deadly battlefield
She knows the demon’s shape and smell-
I’m suddenly upright at 3AM
Stagnant and salty in my cold sweat
I dreamt again of the day I stood up tall
Atop the armored vehicle
To prove that it was safe
To get everyone to stop firing
To try and get a grip on
Indiscipline driven by fear
Exposing myself yet again
Because someone needed
To calm the panic
Of overactive imaginations
And that task fell to me
Because it was my responsibility
To assess the risks
And to get the job done
Sometimes in my dream
The sniper IS still there
And I’m wrong in my assessment
So I don’t walk away
After standing up
To get everyone’s attention
Instead of being in charge
Of evacuating the wounded
In this dream, I’m on the ground
At the Casualty Collection Point
And Doc Turner is trying
To get the bleeding stopped
As the demons circle round me
I hate being wrong
And not being in control
Then suddenly I’m bolted awake
Sitting upright in a cold sweat
And I can feel the maggots
Crawling around under my skin
And I’m never completely sure
If this means the wounds are rotten
Or if this is medicinal-
The eating away of dead flesh
So that only living remains.

Posted on

Accuracy and Truth


One can do military math
On a cardboard box
Using slide rules
Whiz wheels and pins
On a plotting board
Solving ballistic geometry
Manually
Safely calculating
All the elements
Of accurate predicted fire

I used to fill out safety tables
In my head and then
On a scrap of green memo paper
That would get passed to the guns
Now computers do the hard work
In zeros and ones

The precision of navigation systems
Blue Force Tracker and
Command Post of the Future
Are supposed to prevent
The errors that used to creep in
To manual gunnery

But
All of my nightmares
From 25 years of service
Have to do with bombs
Artillery rounds and rockets
Falling where they weren’t intended
Miscommunication
Load elevation
Miss-orientation
False identification
Wrong Laser codes
Wrong attack angle
Danger Close
Human error
Gets men and women
Killed

Garbage In
Garbage Out

Flash and Boom
Reverberation
And Then
Radio Silence