"corpsman" poems
“Doc, over here.” I heard them cry.
I raced on black volcanic sand,
I know snipers target medics with
a corpsman's pouch in hand.
“It’s Mike Strank, they got him bad.”
Mike was down, writhing in pain.
He was losing blood
and awfully pale.
Shielding his body with my own,
in a depression in the ground
I cut away his Khaki shirt.
Until the entry wound was found.
A ******* wound, an evil sign-
red frothing bubbles from his chest.
A styrette of Morphine- all I had
to ease the pain of every breathe.
Suribachi loomed above us.
Barely had a week gone by
since this man had helped to raise
the Forty eight Stars on high.
Now he was dying, fading fast.
A grave awaited, far from home.
There was nothing I could do
except not let him die alone.
Jan 8, 2012
Jan 8, 2012 at 9:30 PM UTC
Do I jump right in,
or just slowly submerge,
and resist the urge
to quickly drown me?
Do I hold your hand
as I wade right in,
or force your head down
under my chin?
Or should I push you in
and go on alone...?
I feel optimistic
I feel saddened
I feel just fine
I feel rabid
I feel like losing every form of hope
I feel my grip slip on the rope
I feel, I feel, I feel
I- nevermind..
Like a corpsman from a failure,
Like a shell-shocked, ship-wrecked sailor,
Like a wounded, desert dog, or maybe
Like a shaken baby,
I crawl away from you.
I taste delicious irony
in all the things they say will **** me;
they tend to be the only things
that keep me breathing.
The light only shines though
after all the drink
and drugs I do
fully set in,
and I feel I can last again.
Amphetamine and LSD
Are the only cure for
what you've done to me.
Thanks to you
and all the opening up I do.
Thanks to me
and my trust for those around me.
May 31, 2012
May 31, 2012 at 12:32 PM UTC
Last night another soldier
lay down in his cot
and closed his eyes upon the world
a world that he forgot
A world amongst his family
his friends and neighbors too
A world where he's just dad
not some LT's number two
Last night another soldier
stayed awake all night
watching over brothers
hurt and injured from the fight
A night like many other
for this corpsman now deployed
he's face to face with horrors
that no war can e'er avoid
Last night another soldier
went on patrol, did not come back
he fell amidst a firefight
from enemy attack
An enemy he never knew
nor even understood
An enemy he only fought
cos someone thought he should
Last night another soldier
celebrated passing out
tomorrow night this cycle
will repeat, there is no doubt
For each night there are soldiers
who do all of the above
hoping we may know true liberty
freedom, peace, and love
May 27, 2010
May 27, 2010 at 7:08 PM UTC
I have bad dreams.
They come, unbidden, into my room at night.
They pass through the maze of my alcoholic daze;
They take me back,
Back to a dusty desert road;
Our convoy is headed towards Mosul.
But we never make it there:
The Humvee is upended by an eardrum shattering blast.
I am falling.
I see you are screaming but there is no sound..
Blackness.
I died three times on the medivac copter
But the Corpsman kept bringing me back.
I have bad dreams
In them I see the faces of the dead,
They are the faces of my friends;
My friends, for whom I mourn
Until this heart becomes a stone.
Jul 21, 2015
Jul 21, 2015 at 9:43 AM UTC
Let the resin of my pain be the fan to my flame
And introduce new and old ways for me to feel
Complete me. For I am only incomplete
While forgetting how You came to save me
My goal is still in sight
It only feels hundreds of miles away
I now know that I love myself, for I wish me good
Allow my actions to do good for others
Let me save them
In this way I know many more things precious
Grant me strength and courage to work within You
My God
My compassion and my love will be my ultimate strength
And I am thankful of a reminder of who I can be
Amen
Jan 27, 2016
Jan 27, 2016 at 10:15 PM UTC
It’s so hard to stay when you’re so far away
& I want to see your face just one more time
Even in a great storm
Cold, snow, rain, fog, or warmth
I’d walk ev-er-y mile to have you in my arms
Even through all the pain
& the screams of yesterday
Bursting bombs, blown up tanks,
war sounds ringing’ in my brain
I still hear all the cries
“don’t you die”… “you’ll be fine…”
“Stay with me” … “you’ll survive…”
“We’re gonna be alright…”
I reopened my eyes, saw bright hospital lights
Life support’s running thin, I no longer qualify
I hear the Corpsman talkin’ when one of ‘em walks in and says “sir, you’ve had a very good fight… it’s time to call it…”
Unable to move, with no strength left to lose
I just let the tears slowly roll down my brui-sed cheek
If it’s my last day and I’m placed in the grave I just want you to know I’ll still find a way, ‘cause, see…
It’s so hard to stay when you’re so far away
& I want to see your face just one more time
Even in a great storm
Cold, snow, rain, fog, or warmth
I’d walk ev-er-y mile to have you in my arms
I said, it’s so hard to stay when you’re so far away
& I want to see your face just one more time
Even in a great storm
Cold, snow, rain, fog, or warmth
I’d walk ev-er-y mile to have you in my arms
I’d walk ev-er-y mile to have you in my arms
I’d walk ev-er-y mile to have you in my arms
I’d walk ev-er-y mile to have youuu
and to be with you forever…
05.30.2022
Every Mile
12:01am
Jun 2, 2022
Jun 2, 2022 at 9:17 PM UTC
I've been pushed and I've been pulled
I've been tricked and I've been fooled
Through it all I have to say that I've been schooled
I dropped out when I began to feel
I was a rock in a sack full of jewels
But when I got out into the real world
I realized that may be the other way around
Because it's a harsh and bitter place
To try and find your own space
Some days you wake up feeling Punch-Drunk
When I see the person in the mirror
Staring at you ...swearing at you
With the eyes of desperation
so far back and sunkin in
But you swear like you do every one of these kind of mornings
Never again ...never again
will I touch that s***
Then you do just what any wounded soldier would do
You shut down and lean back
as you wait for the corpsman
Throughout your body
the world is stormin
While the torrential rains run around the brain
And the lightning keeps tightening the nerves along your spine
As Thunder lays asunder those places
Where so often one might find sanctuary
As the wind come splintering in To tear loose any pieces
neglected left unprotected
that will later be gathered
and then collected
to be given to me
as it and all things that I rejected everything to become a monument of my passing through... so.....
Someone needs to know
Because too often that
"never never "
in the morning
Turns into
"oh! It'll be alright"
in the afternoon
And that's a sad sad song
An old sad song
no matter how much
you update it's tune..
-
Recess is over however.
So...
Oops gotta go.
Mar 5, 2017
Mar 5, 2017 at 4:17 AM UTC
Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]
A Carrier of Bodies
My stretcher is one scarlet stain
-Robert W. Service, “The Stretcher Bearer”
In illo tempore:
I don’t know that anyone shouted, “Corpsman up!”
Like in the movies; I was already up
There, where smoking metal scraps stopped in some kid’s flesh
Red fragments of flesh screaming in the sun
Later:
Carrying bodies of literature was impossible
But I tried; Wordsworth and Keats during the day
Holes in the patients and in sterile drapes
Red fragments of flesh in the E. R. at night
Now:
In the evenings I carry Wordsworth outside
And my older self, to a chair at dusk
Oct 2, 2023
Oct 2, 2023 at 10:55 PM UTC