She's all class
and manners.
The way you imagine
your grandmother was
when she was a twenty-something
Army wife while your grandfather
was eating mud for Christmas dinner
in a trench outside of Berlin.
All smiles and pearly white teeth
and slow dances for one.

stupidity is nothing but a state of mind,
my mother told me as i fetched
tears from the well that i had thought
run dry when i was just a child

amazing what you can find if you
dig deep enough, and dig i did

i could feel you there, but i couldn't
see anything through the self induced
blurs that ran from eyelash to cheek
to chin to the soil that desperately
desired to be quenched under the
soles of my worn leather boots

i yelled out, senseless sentences,
about how you had broken me,
bone by bone, and watched me suffer,
and the anger opened my eyes so
that i could see i was yelling at the grains
that teased me with their dancing in the breeze

your voice still found a way into my ears
telling me that the only finger prints on those stones
were my own

i hated you then, but i recalled something
else my mother had once told me,
you can only hate someone you've loved

All armies are the same
Publicity is fame
Artillery makes the same old noise
Valor is an attribute of boys
Old soldiers all have tired eyes
All soldiers hear the same old lies
Dead bodies always have drawn flies