.
saturday stretched
across decades, snapping in
around memories
better left dormant,
one hour as long as
the drawn gun lifting
to point, the sigh and quickly
missed lunge.
some thoughts own
every space left
between seconds, claiming a self
well lost, inviting
redemptive desire –
that impossible movement
of forgiveness, yet
never granting that
which be so desperately
needed.
.
what a day –
drinking tea at the
table, windblown snow rising
outside the glass.
.
my beloved land,
grass thick as beaver
pelt, light rolling across it,
licking the sky …
.
oh
yes, clouds the very
breath of space and earth
muttering east, rubbing against blue
so blue my bones ache …
.
oh
my beloved land.
bury my now terrified
heart. when this war is gone
drink down this blood.
.
how will we each live with each
other then,
ashamed?
.
.
asphalt underlies so many
memorable longings and
madrid, montalban;
empty highway ninety-five
soaked in restless
sunlight and angry
ranchers’ dissatisfaction.
my roads, lift upon
.
lift, shift against a
subbase poorly laid.
asphalts stretch, alligator
thin skins a clever tease… my
roads do not run on and on.
my roads do not
wear out because they explode.
basrah loops as a flash
bright as cordite,
one fox running all out, one
tree out there waiting.
.
asphalt just lifts.
my road fountains and settles
back whole just in time to lift again,
disintegrating and settling, silently
and again, loops of exploding
asphalt.
.
how I
at times do long for
the men known, dead now or those
not quite dead, still here.
.
maybe it was not the jacketed metal
that killed soldiers, not the compressed air
in a vacant pocket of explosion.
maybe those projectiles only
spring through the gauntlet of wandering attention–
the blistered foot, the scratched raw palm chafing
on the salty stock of a worn rifle.
maybe in the window of rainwater
fresh on green-drunk jungle, in the heart-stopping
din orchestra of birdsong falling
on morning’s delicate daylight, swinging
grass flowing like wind-water
gold as a lit evening in illinois . . .
perhaps it is not precisely the trigger pulled that kills
but the moment between, that of an eyelid flickering,
side trip to a stop frame of living
that takes each soldier’s life,
stolen with calcified indifference
from that blade width of inattention
between the effort of vigilance
and the infinite sensation
of a hunger for beauty.
out back by the runway
fence, dirty air settling now
cool movement just brushing the
backs of our hands before
the rounds pop, so far away
we’re not sure … is it?
is it?
then your palm on the back
of my collar, one lift and hard
shove down the narrow
lane between trailers and
we’re full out, laughing and
fucking well near panic
to be fair, still, I fall
headlong and laughing hard
onto my trailer floor, panting.
i miss the weight
of body armor defining
the edge of ribs
curve of resting
spine after a long day
outside the wire.
I still miss the smell
of jet fuel funking up
morning air, sun
a flat orange disc
strolling up over the dirt
lot where tanks park.
I still miss the clack
of long guns rearranged
and the snick-clack of
handguns armed at the gate,
a thump of artillery out at
the airfield as we watch
from the highway, out
the main gate, just
in time to avoid
lockdown.
orphan poems