Forged in a fire of brotherhood and violence;
Branded and tempered,
you are  called to service.

You step to the front;
relinquishing your home
and dawning the armor of duty and honor.

You feel your heart beat and you know that the tempo does not belong to you.
Your very breath contracted to the country to which you offer your allegiance and life.
Who casts you forth to a world that neither knows or cares who you are.

Who will remember you when this is done?
Who will know what happened here?
You are a piece of a whole;
Parts welded together by the hell that burned you up together and molded soldiers out of the ashes.

And as you kneel before the field of battle;
You take courage in the boots beside you.
You pray because you know that the ultimate sacrifice is not always made by the soldiers who die.

19 OCT 2020

Kymie

And now come the other men,
The figurines, the foragers
And those who marched
Onward
By the failed evergreen. They
Speak of war grown days,
And times before the land
Was tore. Their voices
Shrouded
By one anothers’ patience, and
Each man carried his scars,
Cradled,
In their shadowed
Limblike arms, they bore
Tear marks
Printed
On their gormless
Salty cheeks, and
Under their heavy
Sullen eyes
Paraded gashes
And stains
Of crimson and bleak.

And now come the other men,
Out of the ovens, rushing
For some safer housing.
It’s all a conundrum, this
Waiting and wavering, an
Uncertainty
Mounted across a ditch
Of slightly burnt
Flesh, men mashed
Into one.

And now come the other men,
An identity shared
Between friends, who bask
In the untimely forgery
Of their postured
end.

The world presses down,
and pushing back takes it's toll
on you.
It breaks you down,
you crumble,
pieces of body and mind
shear, flake, and tumble away
from your quivering self.
Everything hurts, eyes closing, mind numb, skin crawling.
Coated in sweat, earth, rain, fuel.
Gunpowder lines your lungs
filling your nostrils.
You long for a release.
Lifting the weight off your back,
to feel yourself float unburdened.
Water to run and renew you,
The hardest mattress a cloud above the chill ground.
Jean's like an old friend on fresh flesh that has forgotten denim.
The touch of a lover, long overdue.
Her soft skin on yours,
with lips so divine,
and a voice like honey.
You forget, for a while, the weight of the world, and all you need do,
is be.
You're set free.

Pinanday ka ng panahon
May tapang na hindi
basta sumusuko,
sa lahat ng laban
wala kang inuurungan,

Agimat mo ay katapangan
na umagaw mula sa kalaban.
Buo at tibay ng iyong loob
ano man ang iyong sagupain
walang di kakayanin.

laban mo’y hindi biro
Una kami sa iyong puso
Bago ang iyong pagkatao
Karamay ka, sa bawat
along bumubugso.

Ikaw ang bagong bayani
ng ating lipi na nagbabalik
ng kulay at sigla bitbit
ang bandila na may kisig
at buong katapangan.

Nations writhe in horror before them;
every face turns pale.
They charge like mighty men;
they scale the walls like men of war.
Each one marches in formation,
not swerving from the course.
They do not jostle one another;
each proceeds in his path.
They burst through the defenses,
never breaking ranks.
They storm the city;
they run along the wall;
they climb into houses,
entering through windows like thieves.

the tide, a never-ending olive green
the advance made silently in
the pitch black night,
dark as the leather on their feet.

wading through the water
a muddy yellow tinged with blood
dripping like machine gun fire
opened fire in the jungle thicket

the river is full of them
treading panic water  to escape
treading on landmines -
little pots of death leaving crates,
cutting arms, legs, limbs gone,
lost in the panic water

soldiers in the river,
men in the panic water,
friends in the throes of death
clinging to each other,
kissing olive canvas with red lips
"Tell my girl I love her if I don't make it back!"
holding each other while holding their breath
listening, listening for the next agent to fall
like rain

and orange the rain on viet cong,
the american hatred dropping like bombs,
on ferns and palm trees losing their green
on children losing their voices from all the screaming and crying
their fathers tired of fighting and hanging loose
like landmine limbs,
in the reeds by the river,
waiting for death.