My vision is like a kaleidoscope
Continually shifting as I awake
And peel my face from a cold tile floor.
My hands rest on a cold surface
Smooth as the glass bottle that put me there.
Porcelain.
As my vision spins I ease myself to my knees,
Remnants from the previous twelve hours
Spill from my mouth like pigeons
Fleeing from a running child.
The metallic taste of blood
Lingers on my tongue
The color red clings to the color white
It seems afraid of what will happen
If it lets go.
I try to piece together
How I got here.
Where is it that I am?
Why am I where I am?
I push myself to my feet
The kaleidoscope continues to vex my vision
It is then I realize where I am
I am in my home.
My brain attempts to spark memories from
The night before like flint trying to spark
A fire.
Still that fire refuses to burn.
I turn and look to the mirror for guidance
But I do not recognize the person I see.
This same mirror once showed me
A man that looked content
A man that looked happy
A man that looked clean
A man that had something to live for.
Now the mirror shows me a man
With blood vessels bursting in the whites of his eyes
With an unshaven face that could cut a welcoming hand
With nothing left under his transparent skin.
It is then I remember why I am here
He’s gone
He took too much and now
He’s gone.
I reach for the remnants
Of that smooth bottle upon the counter
And as I finish the final drops
I slide back to the smooth
Cold tile floor
The dancing of my vision stops.
And darkness takes its place once more.

Three weeks gone and the combatants gone
returning over the nightmare ground
we found the place again, and found
the soldier sprawling in the sun.

The frowning barrel of his gun
overshadowing. As we came on
that day, he hit my tank with one
like the entry of a demon.

Look. Here in the gunpit spoil
the dishonoured picture of his girl
who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinnicht.
in a copybook gothic script.

We see him almost with content,
abased, and seeming to have paid
and mocked at by his own equipment
that's hard and good when he's decayed.

But she would weep to see today
how on his skin the swart flies move;
the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave.

For here the lover and killer are mingled
who had one body and one heart.
And death who had the soldier singled
has done the lover mortal hurt.

When out of a clear sky, the bright

Sky over Japan, they tumbled the

death of light,

For a moment, it's said, there was

brilliance sword-sharp,

A dazzle of white, and then dark.

Into the cavernous blackness, as

home to hell,

Agonies crowded; and high above

in the swell

Of the gentle tide of the sky, lucid

and fair,

Men floated serenely as angels

disporting there.