Unfounded urgency draws
Us out and toward impaling claws.
Body fails on desert shore
Where charging fog unravels with no sea to ride.
 
We cannot imagine coast
Tearing through our raging ghost.
Nor can we remember or
Forget this comfort of eternal attrition
 
Reaching skyward ever, more,
With all earth’s heave behind our roar.
The bleak sunlight quiets most;
Drained survivors drawn back toward retreating silence.
 
From out here. Quiet yet reserving might
For each war against shadow-giving light.
And each dark day we still reach for the moon
As persistently as in illumed night.

A soldiers life
is full of strife
but what keeps him strong
is a soldiers wife

We dreamed of mud.
Someone shook our hand.
We scrubbed our bodies for hours.
We stared blankly at the T.V screen.
Everyone was careful around us.
We dreamed of blood.
We woke up screaming and they didn't know what to do.
We smiled for the camera,
We didn’t touch our food.
We wouldn't talk about it,
Our eyes glazed over as they handed us a piece of metal.
They said,”Real men don’t cry”.
We said “Strong men don’t cry”.
We held ourselves and cried.
Everyone said thank you.
No one said we’re sorry.
We distanced ourselves from family.
We held them close so they knew we would never let go.
They congratulated us.
They looked at us different.
We saw faces in the dark and tried to save them.
We turned on the light because they were already gone.
We felt barrels in our hands and heard foreign words in our ears.
Movies meant something different.
Life meant something different.
We cried ourselves to sleep.
Nobody knew what to do.

You’re movements in the earth trembling like unsteady stars
You pull my limbs apart like planets orbiting a dying sun
(Tell yourself the truth before you get cut off)
There’s petrified stardust immortalized in your blood
You claim to own the nighttime like she’s a war that can be won
Counting down the minutes until darkness shows her son
A soldier versed in a song unsung

Behind the pomp and circumstance
The celebrations and parades
Remember those who battled
The platoons and the brigades
Take some time to think now
Of the freedoms we possess
Of who fought the battle
Those who didn't second guess
Respect the soldiers duty
Give thanks to those who served
A handshake and a smile
Is worth a thousand words
It might be a long weekend
That many now will never see
Think of them this weekend
And give their life some dignity
Now, go and have a hotdog
Ride the float in the parade
Enjoy the fireworks exploding
Have a Happy Memorial Day

This piece of land I call my own

One day shall be overgrown

But one thing that is always shown

Is that people here are free

Lavender scent fills the air

People laughing everwhere

Old frenchmen sitting on the stairs

These things just need to be

Wander close and hear the sounds

There are birds and insects all around

But, we are all beneath the ground

And these we will not see

I lie beneath the sunlit sky

For this place is where I did die

For me I ask that you not cry

I died for my country

Birds are flying overhead

Beneath their flight lay we the dead

The ground was once stained deep blood red

From here you smell the sea

When I was here the sky was black

You could not see each new attack

We'd take one hill, they'd take in back

I was only twenty three

My medals are not on my chest

They're home, I hope like all the rest

I died but did fulfill my quest

I made these people free

I will not age forever more

I will not make it twenty four

But where I lay, there's ten score more

Who believed the same as me

I came to France in Wintertime

The battlefield was mud and slime

The beauty gone, it was a crime

There's not much here to see

Our crosses stand and mark our place

No photographs to show our face

We died with honor and with grace

Please say a prayer for me

Just boys we were when we arrived

It's sad that most did not survive

We gave our souls, we gave our lives

So this world could be free

I remember though one Christmas Day

The war was stopped so we could play

I wish it could  remain this way

We had no enemy

So, here I lie beneath the earth

My life is what your freedoms worth

My tale is one but there's a dearth

Of others here like me

But now I just enjoy the view

The birds above and folks like you

Will keep my story, fresh, anew

Just please...remember me.
.

A

B-beaten
R-ripped into pieces
O-overwhelmed
K-kaous
E-evil
N-neglected

H-hated
O-ordeal
M-manipulated
E-exhausted; environment.

In this poem, as I continue to roam, where have I gone, and where is my home?

cushions make a queer backstop
after five long years of stone
friends and family fray the nerves
after five long years alone

a backyard barbecue a battle
when the fight is finally won
still he fights to find the joy
in the laughter of his son

a bonafide war hero
not as brave as he might seem
when he can’t escape the feeling
that coming home was just a dream

The soil is boiling.
Noxious fumes rise from fissures.


Ice cubes and air-fresheners
Are thrown down from the mansion windows
And we are expected to go to war.


To war, where we will get to be
    Harvested by machine guns,
    Throttled by creeping yellow-green,
    And drowned in ice
        While our blackened feet fall to pieces.


Blind old Nikolai
Can't see the flames
Burning behind thousand-yard-staring eyes
Sunken into one hundred million hollow faces.
    Hollow faces etched into the night
    By the glow of mortar blasts
    And factory fires


He revels in ineptitude
While our agonizing joy
Is found in the next teasing grey sunrise
As we seek to one day return
To the torn and tear-dampened recollections in our pockets.


While a colonel weeps into a photograph,
The wife of his brother weeps into a telegram
    As her cousin is getting his vocal cords clipped out in the streets of Petrograd
        And his father is being eviscerated upon factory

Yes, Nikolai;
The soil is boiling
And I will live, I must live
If only to see the day
That it crumbles beneath you.

if I were something
I'd be a soldier
I'd ******* hicks with flowers