Fons Belli: Part 4
First InfantryWe trained to react first, another Charlie and I;
AK-47's pulled apart blindly, reassembled, loaded,
ready to fire twice, head and heart,
just to be sure.
Backpacks, mess sets, survival gear,
sixty pounds of daily needs
crammed into a uterine flex-sack
awaiting a possible renaissance
into a Brave New World
or a New World Order
balanced themselves gingerly on heaving shoulders
carrying the weight of wavering philosophies
of both Charlie and me
through political conflicts of interest,
through make-believe conflicts
with maximum effort to neutralize the enemy.
At boot, he bunked on top to watch my back
and I watched his. We trained for that;
we lived because of that.
First Contact
In the field we dug that trench together
not deep enough for a grave
but wide enough for two to pass back to back
even hunched over so helmets appeared like
turtles meandering aimlessly
until that sniper nipped it near the earhole
and flipped it with a two and half twist,
one and a half somersault.
.
The lead ricocheted into the mud
harmlessly buried like many
not so lucky GI's gone before.
Gus used his gun to deftly retrieve the helmet from its sticking point
as single volleys sought the dented relic of what should have been
splattered brains draining into some god's damned chalice of sacrifice.
Frenchie got him dead-eyed from the flash
scoped and scuttled dead fish drop from lofty perch
into flat layout spread-eagled backward portrait
with a nail hole where the heart might have been.
Gus weakly smiled as Frenchie sneered at his fallen prey.
This was old hat, dead target practice, no names, no dates,
no feeling at all.
Verified and noted for CNN News.
The ever pervasive dead blood odor
hung over us, clung to us
like the niter of Poe's Amontillado
where death was imperfect murder.
None of us wanted notoriety,
but back home we were the rope of tug-o-war
yanked into conflict, demanded back
where wives and children polled and pulled to no avail.
Nightly news – they listened for daily death counts,
widow's benefits, lonely nights, and cries from tomorrow's
single parent's voices, unspoken pleading from weeping child's eyes.
Mothers wrung with pride their wrinkled hands, wan smiles
that proudly hailed that rigid uniform
soaking in an open ditch
where ancient combatants armed with spears and shields
once absorbed the onslaught on command:
civil Greeks take civil life;
Romans versus barbarians;
social, political, religious, personal differences;
brother against brother – no answer to Why am I here
playing these children's games of war?
We recall the Combat! series, anything
to stay alive in defense of whatever it was they said.
They said anything to make us seem alive.
They lied.
Poetry by NotaDeadPoet
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Written on 2007-03-20 at 17:36
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