They wear their bodies inside-out, some are ashes but few are dust. Vacant orbits, oblivious to the incoming tide and the percussive artillery from the heavily fortified positions on Rue de la Mort, view the world with equanimity. Their bloodied stillness at odds with the surrounding tumult.

It’s at times like these - pinned down behind a burnt-out vehicle, the sand skipping around me with the phut-phut-phut of spent rounds - that I envy them their final freedom. Not that all deaths are as elegant and instantaneous as a well aimed bullet to the head.

It is a fleeting thought, hardly even that, a whispering somewhere in the background of my consciousness, like listening to a low-tuned wireless. And with victory as with defeat - with the ear-ringing silence - the whisperings become louder and more persistent.

Right, left; up, down; stop, wait; walk, run; sink, swim; live, die. Some pray to survive, other’s yearn for the sweetspot, the one shot ****. Regardless, there is no doubt that we who remain will fight on for weeks, for years, for decades and continue to live the uncertainty of the living - sweating bullets until kingdom ****** come.

gulls cawed, so loud their calls
echoed off the cliffs behind us, a ghost flock answering,
though not shrill enough to rouse us

they flew crisscross patterns
and dove into the surf, but not one landed
on the carrion strewn across the sands

not like the vultures of my youth,
ravenous black hawks that began their devouring
at the first scent of death, or a moment before

no, these creatures merely called
to one another, a curious conversing
about the carnage below

perhaps their strange song
our dirge, as they swooped to and fro, wings
slicing currents carrying our souls

Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944

I drew a line in the sand
Between you and me,
And said, “Thou shalt
Not crosseth this line.”
Well, the waters of time
Rise and they fall, and
The trench I’d dug
Flooded with the truth,
Spilling unbidden from
These lips and I, frozen
In shame and something
Like fear demanded,
“Thou shalt not crosseth
These waters.” And you,
Faithful and tangled in
My web of lies, did not
Cross. But, like Jesus
On the Cross, we bled,
And the rivers of blood
Knew no borders, so
I fled, further up the
Mountain, until there
Was an ocean between
Us. And I commanded,
“Thou shalt not crosseth
This sea.” But, having
Drawn my line in the sand,
I’d forgotten for a moment
The world was round,
And I found myself back
On a beach in Normandy
With you.

never saw red sand before,
but it was red on the beach
back in '44.

Friends who ended their days
looking at me with a
startled gaze as if it was
all make believe
and that later
we'd meet for a cigarette,

not for me yet,
but I never forget that
it could have been me
watching with eyes that
could no longer see

on the red sand
back in '44

They lay on Normandy.
Two hundred miles away, the empty shells of humans
Who lie below the streets
Felt the poison that lurked above.

They shuffled out of the underground,
Boarding trains and ships like corpses
And dropping bombs from miles above.

A little French boy is spared.
His brother whispers “Bon courage,”
As the rest of the family are taken out back
And shot like mad dogs.

Twenty years later, he stands on the beach
With his young wife
Watching their sons roll and play in the sand.

His tongue tastes a warm salt
That couldn't come from the ocean.
All he can taste from the ocean is blood.

I can see my grandfather clearly
With tears falling down his face
As his mother shuts the piano.
“There will be no music,” she says quietly.

She is an immigrant
And I wonder if she questions the choice
That brought her son to a country where he might lay down his life
For strangers, four thousand miles away.

I can feel him now
Hiding in the apple trees,
High above the others.
He is in Sainte-Mère-Église, and there are enemies below.

And now I take them in my arms
Cradling them like children
“Je vous embrasse, les deux,”
And I lie down on the edge of the ocean at Normandy.

I exhale and hold them close.
The sun is shining, and I do not cry;
It is nothing but salt and water to me.

Shoulder to shoulder you bands of brothers landed.
Code name Operation Neptune was underway.
You noble breed, not knowing what lay ahead
Just knowing that your duty was called upon.
The bugle sounded, you all answered the call
nobly you waded those waters for all.
06/06/1944 was the day.
The largest seaborne invasion in history.
Yet, you brothers in arms were not caring of history making
Just making it to the beach, alive.
I can but humbly thank you for what you all did that day,
you that lived and those that died.
What thoughts must have played in your mind.
A lone piper played throughout, what courage you all displayed.
No wonder we that came after you, leave you feeling dismayed.
Many wars have been fought since, their courage is also undenied,
but, you, you thousands on those beaches showed the world the meaning
of pride, respect and warrior.
On the beaches of Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword,
you carved a way in. To end the war.
Nobler people I doubt exist, and soon this 70th anniversary
will fade in time, but not that date of June the sixth (1944)