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Titles
Poems added to the warpoetry web site
July 2005
I was teaching in Skopje
when NATO started bombing Kosovo and Serbia. I was displaced as a result of the
conflict, leaving for
Andrew Drummond
I was teaching in Skopje when NATO started bombing Kosovo and Serbia. I was
displaced as a result of the conflict, leaving for
Greece while it looked pretty bad on the ground. Here are two poems about those
few days: between 23rd March and 27th March 1999.
Another two poems describe the death of a person at a
cafe Skopje, 1999. The other the torture of a young boy in a police station
in Tetovo, 1997 based on witnessed events.
by
Andrew Drummond
I
wanted to go to the cafe
But
a wind blew me away.
I
was ripped out of my nicotine patch;
My
walking boots, still smoking,
Walk
the streets,
Trying
to find their feet.
Insects
fill the night sky;
Not
glow-flies now but fighters.
The
fat man sings
And
the merry-go-round begins again.
Taxis
jostle and elbow for airspace.
Institutions
fall.
A
wind blows us south.
A
wind blows us away.
The
barometer reads red.
Shopkeepers
mourn over their stock.
Bus
routes quake; trains stall.
CNN
is live.
Paranoia
thrives.
Shengen
visas fall upon their swords.
Appointments
fall from the sky.
Friends
leave and friends stay:
Instinct
rules over altruism.
The
fat man sings the blues.
A
pyramid of panic surrounds a people.
Baseball
caps stoke the fire.
Banks
laugh.
Reason
will not approach this fear
Distance
presumes innocence.
Death
takes precedence.
To top[ of page
by
Andrew Drummond
Digging
down deep into the moss
Into
the roots of loss,
Lies
a troika: tubers, tumuli and tumult
The
smashed face of analogue time reads
March
23rd: broken futures, splinter here;
Separate
here.
You're
leaving home
But
you don't need dad to open the door
Locked
doors are gonna blow
Do
not pass go,
Don't
pause to collect yourself
No
time to take back library books
Your
better half is staying
Ever
to ride the no.26
Down
Partizanska
To
enjoy a spring;
A
summery hue
In
hills around Skopje
Your
reward for a hard winter
Half
a million search for homes
As
a chill Balkan wind ices
Into
our hearts
To
deny the warmth of a season
That
never came
The
Roots of loss
Weeping
out of the roots of loss
Walking
on phantom limbs
Among
the ghosts
Of
futures lost
And
wasted partners
Tracing
the curvature of divorce
No
new warmth leads me
Down,
down into the past
Of
causes known
And
meanings hidden
Numbness
thaws
Into
the pain of knowing
It
cannot be lived again
To top[ of page
No
Drita, Amir, Burim, Gezim
No
bumpty-headed white hat
Messing
with my kids
Your
schools are like a cancer
That
spreads in our organs
An
illness that verifies
Our
racial supremacy
Your
Granddad was one of the men
My
granddaddy hated
The
day you and the Germans
Took
over our village
Time
to deliver
The
promise in my heart
To
fight for my fathers
To
do my part
It's
hard case to argue
The
case for torture
But
if we stick together
None's
any the wiser
No
regrets or tears to follow
The
boy he deserves it
His
pathetic cries flow downstream
Like
burned out cars
No
regrets no tears will flow
That
boy, he earned it
His
pathetic scars
Like
the rivers burned out cars
A
beating to invigorate
The
murder we investigate
The
shooting of our colleague
Deep
in your village
A
beating that delivers
The
freedom to revenge
The
death of my partner
Shot
by your father
Time
for you to consider
Your
ethnic flavour
A
name that sounds stupid
Your
blood the wrong colour
Time
to reconsider
Your
ethnic manifestation
Of
a shit-coloured illness
At
the heart of creation
No
Drita, Amir, Burim, Gezim
No
bumpty-headed white hat
Messing
with my kids
Time
to reflect on
The
twist in your name
The
twist of your soul
Your
sad incarnation
It's
a hard point to argue
The
case for torture
But
if we stick him back together
None
will know any better
A
beating that administers
A
cultural truth
That
there's more to policing
Than
policy briefing
No
frequency to drown out
The
nonsense you scream about
Expressing
an injustice
Your
suppose in your hatred
No
frequency to drown out
The
nonsense you scream about
Expressing
the injustice
You
suppose in your hubris
With
no one to remonstrate
To
steady nor regulate
The
punishment coming
From
hand, fist and baton
A
beating that resonates
In
the local debate
'Is
it better to shoot Shiptar
Or
simply to hate?'
No
frequency to dampen
The
sounds of the cries
Colliding
with the cars
Drowned
by the river
Cigarettes
are not death. Death is death.
I
can't write about his death
There's
nothing to say
One
minute he's there
The
next blown away
Stronger
than caffeine
More
circular than a table umbrella
The
blast circumference
That
forms round the victim
The
pavement hangs it head
Small
talk goes dumb
They
call, 'call the police'
But
the police don't come
Coffee
goes cold
Bills
left unpaid
'Where
did you park the car?'
Underground;
far away
To top[ of page
Poems from the UK
How the poem, When the Men Came Back,
came about
This came to mind too,
remembering how it was, after the men came back from Atlantic duty [the
Falklands War], wondering about the attack on the Belgrano; and those
who still suffer from post traumatic stress disorder - sounds of
fireworks upsetting them, programmes on TV that drag it all up again,
Remembrance Day services that bring the anger back. Then the medals.
What were the medals for ? The futility of it all.
So this is what I saw when the men came back
from the Falklands . . .
When the men
came back
They say that time is a healer.
Time numbs the mind,
blanks out the memories.
But then you hear the fireworks
and in the dark of the night
you can still die ~ of fright.
Just the sound ~ of the bangs ~ all around
like guns, triggers the memory,
the fear, the cold sweats,
of being fired at ~
Up in the sky, over the sea,
no self defence, in foreign territory ~
The crew is gripped with fear,
nerves in shreds, mouth deadly dry ~
We could be dead soon,
we could plunge to the icy sea,
disappear under the Atlantic,
never to be found again.
"Lost at sea"
R.I.P.
Back home again
for a week or two ~
We're at a party
It's so unreal
I curl up in a corner,
head in hands.
I can be me again
the real Me,
the husband, the father,
the neighbour.
This is Me.
Now I can cry ...
gentle arms hold me close.
What I have seen
won't go away.
It's still here, 20 years on,
and every firework
that you casually let off
proves that time
is not a healer.
Cesca M Croft
To top[
of page
Watching the programmes about Auschwitz on
tv, seeing how anybody who was different was sidelined by the Nazis, made me
think about how people are racially discriminated against from all angles. After
wars, people are also pigeon-holed as from the enemy gang.
My father cycled round NW London looking for
a doctor to come and help when I was born. I was bleeding internally. It was
a Sunday afternoon and none of the English doctors would come out and help.
We had a German surname. Then my father found a Jewish lady doctor, who came
along and saved my life, with an injection of vitamin E.
Would English doctors now dare to refuse to
go and treat a Muslim baby ? Can hate do so much to people that they take it
out on a new born baby with the wrong surname ?
Do English Jews still face anti-Semitism in
this country ?
The year my father died, at 67, he told me
to aim to make the world a better place, to encourage ecumenical conference
and tolerance of other religions, because if we took the best qualities from
each religion and denomination and founded a global ethos of spirituality, we
could fight evil that way; and maybe then wars would stop, never again a holocaust
such as at Auschwitz and Treblinka. Yet there was evil in Rwanda and Iraq, and
many other similar occurrences after Hitler and the Nazis in the 20th century.
When will humankind ever learn ?
Hence the following, not well written :
1947 Lottery of
Birth
Doctor Josef escaped the Nazis
Escaped to Outer London.
After the War
A knock on her door:
"Please come
Please help."
Someone asking me
Someone calling me Doctor -
"Your name, Sir, your name ....
Ah but that is German ..."
"Yes, yes, but from long ago,
Two centuries ago !!
It is just our name -"
"So, you too are victims.
How cruel was this war."
"English doctors will not help -
My baby daughter, new born,
Will bleed to death -
Please come."
"Come, let us go -
On our bikes !
I have the Vitamin K.
Your baby's life
We will now save."
And she did. They did.
Thank you Dr Josef.
So I became my father's
Second daughter.
Cesca M Croft
26 January 2005
For more poems about the Falklands War
click this link. Falklands Page
Wave
us off to our deaths
The
fresh faced children of your country
What
horrors will we face in lands of far away?
Dare
we imagine the fates that await us?
We
are all smiles and caresses
And
full of songs of possible triumphs
The
band plays and we feel unstoppable
And
the old soldiers nod at each other
In
a secret code of knowing
The
training that seemed so hard is now a memory
And
we bask in the light of our adulation
As
the ships leave port and sail to our future
And
into Catholic Hell
We
have no time to catch our breath
As
overhead the bombs and bullets fly
We
run and all to soon the realities flood in
As
does the rainwater and mud that surrounds us
Moans
rise up
And
calls to home wail on the wind
And
we are numb from it all
The
rain feels warm upon the skin
Compared
to the feelings that we have
And
then a voice that has drummed into out very core a reaction
Calls
us back to the world and we are at war
And
we see the truth that our callow youth has clouded
And
we know why the old soldier's eyes look distant
When
our uniform meets his gaze
The
day's rage on, and then the years
But
what difference does that make in Hell
For
each day is the same
Lives
lost, friends lost, hope lost
Until
the letters come
Home
is the lifeline of sanity
The
Oz of our lives
Oh
that we could be lifted up and returned there
But
on go the barrage and the blood
Then
the day comes
And
we are to return to the land of our fathers
But
when we return we are shadows
And
our families must light us back home with their love
And
bring us out of the Hell of war
We
return men
But
at what cost to our souls?
And
as we walk the streets on Remembrance Day
We
remember the battles, and our lost friends
And
are the callow youths we were once more
The
whining rise awakens us from dreams of better times
Zombies
in RAF uniforms follow the dimming light to outside
Where
the dark leviathans of the empirical kingdom lie in wait
Their
charioteers take their seat and gee up their horses
While
engineering creatures run about caressing and checking its skin
The
beast awakes and we are almost left behind in its wake
Hard
to run in boots that have been laden with the blood of many battles
But
we are spurred on, and our heels take Mercurial flight
The
reader of the stars tells the charioteer our course and we are away
Treading
the light fantastic of the sombre darkness
A
great water masses below and we know the battle will soon begin in earnest
Now
as we approach the torched citadel of the Germanic races
We
make our peace with whichever power rules our life
And
hope that we die a good death, if we have to
The
boy shows his fear as he mutters unintelligible fears
But
soon he is calm, for he has trained for this moment
The
torches appear and the Angel of Death takes his place
And
awaits the charioteer's word
And
reigns fire on the once walled city below
The
dim lights flare and the beast is awakened
Eating
streets as it gains in hunger
We
sigh knowing our job is done
Then
the leviathan lurches and bucks
Fiery
retaliation for our deeds fly into the air
We
spur on the beast that has taken us so far
Hoping
its love for us will get us home
And
there is the land of our forefathers
And
we hear the call of the breeze
And
we are safe and back in the arms of our comrades
And
we are happy and gay
And
we forget our occasion as if it was a mere phantasm
To top[ of page
When
will we take care
Of
these cherished lands?
When
will we put a stop
To
our destructive hands?
The
answer is a guess
At
best, and estimation
For
no one can truly predict
What
forces of destruction
Await
the children of tomorrow
The
man in the shop asks why he is poor
I
give him no justification; just stare at the floor
There's
nothing I can say while millions are spent
On
the weapons of destruction for which no one seems to repent
All
I ask is "when will we take care
Of
these cherished lands?
When
will we put a stop
To
our destructive hands?"
And
I wait for an answer in the silence of sorrow
Seems
like I'll be waiting for a long time to follow
Amongst
the confusion
Of
our land and our affairs
Valiant
young men
Fight
each other's glares
For
the same, yet opposite reasons
They
do what is asked.
But
their leaders lied
And
their time has passed
To
create the myth of enemies and friends
When
each is facing a fellow man
They
long for the day
When
punishment arrives
For
this dishonourable deception
Surely
someone must be tried?
The
fields fall silent
The
last hero is falling
Kissed
by a bullet,
That
fatal romance
Man
has eternally with war
Yet,
it is never complete.
There
is always some object to obtain
Some
people to free.
Fears
and revenge is all we can see.
The
last hero has fallen
He
lays silent, clutching the Earth.
Wanting
his mother
To
quench his forlorn thirst.
The
dead never move
Yet
they move us all
We
sent them abroad
For
a debated purpose
They
fought, they fell
The
ground no more than a bloody well
At
least the fields are now silent
Generations
of soldiers gather round
Completely
still
Moving
us all
We
should let them tell the tale
About
war to the full.
All
heroes have gone
They
sleep away from home
Mothers
morn their only son
Is
this what we want?
To top[ of page
About Alexis Child:
Alexis Child hails
from Toronto, Canada; horror in its purest form. She
works at a Call
Crisis Centre befriending demons of the mind that roam
freely amongst her
writings. She lives with a Shaman and Calico-cat child
sleuthing all that
goes bump in the night. Her fiction has been featured in
The House of Pain,
Lost Souls, Screams of Terror, and Top International
Horror 2004 published
by Rainfall Books/BJM Press. Horror fiction is
forthcoming in Scream-4-Me
Fanzine. Her poetry will appear/has appeared
online and in print
in such publications as Blood Cookies, Decompositions,
The Dream People,
Gothic Fairy Tales, The Harrow, Horror Carousel,
Lunatic Chameleon,
Midnight Lullabies Anthology, Ragged Edge Publishing,
Realm of Darkness,
Simulacrum, Skin and Bones, Tales of the Talisman,
Unspoken Dreams,
Whispers of Wickedness, and elsewhere.
Visit her website at: http://www.angelfire.com/poetry/alexischild/
Auschwitz gave birth
To a nation
Multiplied by scorn
What was strengthened
Wouldn't exist without
hatred
Grind our bones
into dust
Cease to oppose
us
We shall rise again
Deified, in annihilation
© 2005, Alexis Child
The sky of survival
Shaped of shadows
A perplexing vision
Strangely considerate
Pulls the trigger
On the skull of dreams
The troops are coming
Leaving behind cemeteries
Thousands are killed in
a day
For taking what isn't theirs
Only death surrenders to
peace
Waking up the day from dreaming
copyright 2004, Alexis Child
Leaving home she will visit
Her husband or the grave
Marry or be buried
The clan's honour is at stake
A woman disgraced
Killed at the prison gates
Her rotten body cut off
Blood washing away shame
Hands raised in prayer
Inside the Mosque
Murder is murder
In the eyes of God
© 2003, Alexis Child
Infidels spew
forth life's blood
Upon Solomon's gold
A seven-headed Beast
Consumes simian
wastelands
We flee from stained
regrets
Swallowing the Raven's
anticipation
Heralding death
without a pact
Impaled in the stillborn
lover
From my sleep to
someone else's
Is a stringless
violin
Elysium fields shall
bow
Before us once again
Paying homage to
plague merchants
Passing on their
crimson masks
copyright 2005, Alexis Child
To top[ of page
17 7 05
Remember Their Sacrifice
September
11 was a clear day
As
terrorists attacked family and friends
They
awoke to avenge this cruelity
Lest
their sacrifice be forgotten
October
7 was a brisk day
As
American troops fought beside Afghans
They
drove Al Quida from their bay
Lest
their sacrifice be forgotten
March
20 was a fresh day
As
US fighters took on terrorist Iraq
They
pushed back the dark and evil play
Lest
their sacrifice be forgotten
Lord
God above
Be
with them daily
Lest
their sacrifice be forgotten
Lest
their sacrifice be forgotten
By
Jason Morris
Captain
USAF
Operation
Enduring Freedom
To top[ of page
Greenfield, Mass, USA
Men
lost to more than just death
lost
to the pain that lives inside
inside
their minds, their hearts.
The
pain of those who survived
with
the memories of those who didn't,
the
memories that haunts
that
never heals, that never leave.
That
live within ones soul
always
wanting out
but
never real getting there.
As
they try to fight their way back
to
what they once knew
to
those they once loved.
They
slip further and further away
into
the ghosts of their past.
The
screams echo through the emptiness
of
the holes left by the guns and bombs.
With
every BANG! they fill less and less,
almost
unrecognizable to them selves
and
all the rest they once knew.
With
the return of those who fought
comes
more sadness from all that love them.
After
all is done
they
are never as they were before.
To top[ of page
Are these poems or micro-stories?
Carol Bergman writes:
The poems were written post
9/11, in the midst of Iraq, and during two long years of editing mostly war
zone stories for my anthology of stories by humanitarian workers. I'm a child
of refugees from the Nazi genocide, and came of age—in the US—during the Vietnam
War.
Carol Bergman is the editor
and compiler of "Another Day in Paradise; Frontline Stories from International
Aid Workers, foreword by John Le Carre, Earthscan, 2003. This anthology was
published in Korea in 2004 and will be translated into Chinese in 2005. She
is a journalist whose feature articles, essays, and interviews have appeared
in The New York Times, Newsday, The Daily News, The Amsterdam News, Cosmopolitan,
Family Circle, Child, and many other publications. She is the author of two
film biographies (Mae West, Sidney Poitier), a memoir, "Searching for Fritzi."
Her creative nonfiction and literary fiction has appeared in Aim, Willow Review,
Onionhead, Potpourri, The Bridge, and other literary journals in the US and
the UK. "Objects of Desire," published in Lilith and Whetstone, was
nominated for the 1999 Pushcart Prize in nonfiction. She teaches writing at
New York University.
The railroad station was a hut
in the middle of a forest, a fortress, a way-station, as capacious as a barn,
unheated, soiled. The floor was compressed sand, sifted and layered, like the
silt at the bottom of the river, moist and dense with cadavers and ash.
A man and a woman sat on a bench
in the station and waited for the train which would take them on the next phase
of their journey. They had been walking for days, eating berries and ferns.
The ferns were bitter and caught in their throat. The man spit. The woman choked
and heaved. They had sent their children ahead.
They were hungry. The woman
wanted an apple. She had been dreaming of an apple. She was embarrassed by her
hunger. Her hair was blonde and her face wide. A friendly and open face, a smile
without teeth from the months they had been on the road sleeping in shacks,
scrounging for food, like wolves.
The air was fetid and still.
A desert in the midst of the forest. Their children would be returned to them,
or not returned to them. Who was responsible? Who would know their fate?
A vendor appeared at the station
with a cornucopia of fruits: pears and apples, primarily, temptation and hope.
And with the scent of ripening flesh, the woman's appetite returned. She asked
for the green apple, and thought of her children sleeping under a duvet on the
other side of the world, and bit into the apple.
In ordinary times, it should
not be difficult to locate a source of sustenance, a zone of safety, ones' children,
a train.
It was cold and dark, the dead
of night, as he approached the house. He understood the danger and was wearing
camouflage, she thought. The war was nearly over, but there was still danger.
Guerrilla fighters, land mines, renegades with their own causes tunneling through
the mountains into the villages, and taking them over.
Sometimes life went on as if
it were normal. That night, her husband had gone to visit friends. He had been
challenged to a game of chess. She watched as he scurried down the path like
a ferret. They were all animals now, so the analogy came easily to her. She
even smiled noting his descent, in and out of hedge grows, head down, arms swinging
wildly. Occasionally he stopped and turned over rocks to search for worms, a
source of protein, and also fennel. Fennel, with its biting licorice flavor,
had become his favorite food.
So he was gone, loosed into
the war torn world below, when her former lover arrived at the house. She stepped
forward to greet him. The camouflage was an illusion, she now realized. A precaution
she had expected, given their past history, it was now abandoned. He was wearing
a navy blue coat, army issue, and a powder blue woolen cap that matched his
eyes. His face had aged, the once smooth skin was now rutted with experience.
Cigarettes had roughened his voice. He was no longer insouciant, he was grave.
She put her arm around his shoulders
in welcome and continued with him up the path into the mountains. There was
a cave there, a safe haven, where they could talk. Nothing had changed, everything
had changed. He held a powerful flashlight and led the way.
They began their ascent in silence,
like old friends who are completely comfortable with one another, or strangers
who have never met before. It was impossible to conclude one or the other by
observing them.
The trail was narrow. Tall grass
spires swished over them with a rush of air. A small deer crossed their path
and began grazing a berry patch. She wouldn't be able to stay for long. She
didn't know if this mattered or if her longing for her lover mattered. This
was not her lover, he was someone else, someone she barely recognized. He had
been gone too long and she had taught herself to forget him. He reminded her
of an actor she had once admired.
The flashlight illuminated the
path, and then the cave. Was that a smile? She wasn't certain. The chess game
would be over soon. Thoughts of her husband compressed her chest, paining her.
It would be necessary for her lover to continue walking. She would make the
descent back to the house in the dark without him.
To top[ of page
The room is cluttered when she
arrives, and there is a vinegary smell. A natural cure for cockroaches, she
heard someone say. Pour vinegar into the cracks, let it evaporate at its own
speed. Is she evaporating?
She takes off her Gortex jacket,
folds it neatly, and places it mindfully on the bed. Gray army issue wool blanket.
She's noting all the details. Her mind is occupied.
How long will I stay? Where
are my books? Where are my clothes?
If only she could ask these
questions. If only someone could answer them. But the door is shut, she is utterly
alone, and the corridor is silent. The room is illuminated by one light bulb
hanging on a wire.
I am empty handed. I have no
belongings.
This is where her thoughts stop.
She sits on the bed next to her jacket.
The past is baggage enough,
if only I could make use of it.
She walks to the window and
contemplates the vista. Mountains in the distance, fields abutting the brick
wall, shacks and barns. All in the present tense. Dogs, horses, plows, a well
in the center of the village.
The lived in a cave in the mountains.
It was well furnished.
The ground was mined, but this
was of no consequence. They had purchased special shoes. These shoes detected
mines within a six foot circumference. One foot slowly in front of the other
foot. Progress was slow, but this also was of no consequence.
The terrain was a zone of safety.
Each day had become predictable.
In the morning, they searched
for food and water, berries and leaves. Their digestion had reverted to this
vegetarian diet. They followed the bears' spoor which guaranteed a meal by midday.
Their stomachs rumbled as they remained focused on their task. They had no words
to explain this.
There were other caves in proximity,
all well furnished. Clusters of men, women and children. They might have been
relations or neighbors, but this, also, was of no consequence. As an observer,
one would say they were people of disparate and unknown association. They had
re-formed themselves. They had no history.
She is more woman than any woman.
When she arrives, she is fully clothed, though it is the Garden of Eden. Her
black dress grazes her ankles. Her blouse is pulled tight in a criss cross around
her bosom. She is wearing leather sandals and, most notable, there is a large
coin hanging around her neck on a leather tong. Her husband bought her this
in a market in the Sudan, she says.
"How can money be purchased?"
the reporter asks.
It is then she begins to relate
her story. The setting is inappropriate, unkind. Yet, she is compelled to continue.
She wishes to reveal a truth.
The reporter has a clipboard
with questions and notes. He listens attentively. Children are playing underneath
the table, her children, but she is not distracted. She is old enough to be
their grandmother.
"Do you think we are doing
better?" the reporter asks.
She takes out a box of cigarettes,
blue lettering on a white ground.
"My husband..."
Too soon, the tape recorder
runs empty. Smoke fills the room, seeping into everyone's clothes. The reporter
looks disgruntled.
"I have been out of the
country for twenty years," she continues "I have never seen Seinfeld.
My clothes are out of fashion."
She gets up to leave, hugging
a folder to her chest. Fully extended it is now evident she is small in stature,
diminished by the atrocities she has witnessed in the camps.
She began a conversation with
a street vendor. She needed socks. Did he have any bargains? Yes, he said, three
for five dollars.
Although they were too thin,
she decided to buy them. It was something about the man's face as he stepped
closer to her, the way his eyes were out of alignment. He had high cheekbones
and sensuous lips. His skin was roasted almond. His hair was flecked with gray.
He was tall.
When she asked him if he was
a vet his one good eye opened wide. Had she noticed his military cap before
or after her question? Then she asked him how he was doing. Why ask this question,
she wondered, unless I am prepared for an answer.
He'd had a bad winter confined
to his wheelchair and his apartment. He was always cold. Now, as they were talking,
he was standing up without crutches. Can you tell I am an amputee, he asked.
Another customer was trying
on a straw hat. And yet another held a long skirt up to her waist and swished
it around. From what countries had he gathered these totems of pleasure? How
many women and children had he killed? Did it matter now?
The sound of jets roused her
from sleep. Outside, the still wintry overcast sky lay speckled and worn. Now
there were navy blue fighter jets overhead in re-configured flight path. They
approached and then veered away, their engines thrumming and spewing fumes as
they cut away. She watched with incredulity as one plane spun downward nose
first into the settlement of houses just yards away from her windows. Only poor
people lived there and it was as though they had been targeted by the machines
designated to protect them, those enormous navy blue planes with white markings
and red lettering. Eerily, there was no sound or smoke as the buildings swallowed
the plane's body and then its tail. All was in stasis until hysteria and then
motion erupted. Ambulances arrived. In the distance, a woman with curly black
hair was sunbathing on a sand dune, oblivious and inured. It's a scene she'd
witnessed before: Sevastopol after the Liberation, that famous photograph from
May, 1944, men and women in the rubble of a shattered city catching the sun,
and smiling
To top[ of page
"And
there's no light to see the voices by;
There
is no time to ask - he knows not what."
Wilfred
Owen
She
held her hand our for me,
a
dream I did not want to end,
her
path and mine refused to cross
before
the great call to arms,
I,
deep within myself, knew that it
was
highly unfair for her to marry a man burnt as badly
I
was, for no matter how many decoration and ribbons placed upon my chest,
the
flesh left over from a blast in the direction
of
my hurling body,
I
saved three white boys from dying,
yet,
when I came to Magnolia Sweets,
I
could not watch the movie shows downstairs with
the
white man,
I
was directed by guards to the balcony,
when
I took a job mopping floors at that Richmond hospital,
they
complained that my looks scared off the patients
and
their families,
so
I was switched to the midnight shift,
quiet,
I
saw her, my first love,
holding
the hands of one of those men I'd saved,
incidentally,
as a matter of fact,
neither
recognized me underneath a new face
the
VA had given me,
passing
right in front of me,
there
was nothing more I could offer either
of
them,
changing
my mop water,
I
punched out for the night,
walking
into the cold Richmond air,
heading
home,
riding
the bus, at the back, I stood
letting
the white ladies have my seat,
there
are no thank you's for those of us
cursed
with this hideous dress,
our
only salvation
perhaps,
is to realize,
that
even a point blank wound
does
not change the color of a man
skin,
enough
to be treated like a warrior
in
need of a woman who loves him
in
spite of himself.
Copyright,
William "Wild Bill" Taylor, June, 2003
Grief
dressed up a long time ago when
she
came on a crowded streetcar,
dream
cakes, and indigo,
a
feast for those with happiness,
count
the number who ride invisible horses,
to
homes far away from mountain lands,
the
gentle river breeze slaps me like a caress
she
gave me,
long
away from the silliness
of
youth's good-bye,
hell-o
today,
cantankerous
sort,
I'd
rather be with her,
riding
over treetops
glistening
for something
lost,
yet
even more present
than
the campfire's shoot.
Copyright,
William "Wild Bill" Taylor, February, 2004
by
Bill Taylor
We
danced with the Cherokee virgin from Budapest,
lying
down drunk before the blinking eye,
the
telephone does not say,
"this
is one great kid!"
She
defiled me in the bonnie wee hours of the dewey
decimal
dawn,
Take
me home, Solomon name-dropper
vanity
of vanities,
One
great kid!
red
on red,
black
on black,
what
becomes of the blinking eye?
Cool
man, lonely with the shared bed of
a
blood sucker from paradise,
One
great kid
eating
popcorn
dusty
beach landings,
alone,
consequential
blink,
for
the final time,
let's
half another drink,
shall
we, General Westmoreland?
Copyright,
William "Wild Bill" Taylor, March, 1999
To top[ of page
"Go
tell the Spartans, thou who passest by,
That
here, obedient to their laws, we lie."
--Simonides
Come
up from the fields dear Papa
come
in the house where it is warm,
go
and get mother,
tell
her to bring dear sister's yarn, too,
Until
then, I cannot tell you anything,
so
please hurry here as best you can,
By
the look on my face and the new company I keep,
the
news that comes in this house is not that good,
lament,
tears
for the fallen,
lament,
there
is a telegram from the War Department,
our
Luke has been killed,
they
will try and send his remains to us,
when
the fighting stops in that part of the world,
where
nobody gives a damn!
until
then you have the condolences of a grateful nation,
and
a wheel barrow with tweezers
to
find your broken heart.
Copyright,
William "Wild Bill" Taylor, August, 2004
I
was the soldier supreme
rough
and ready
with
the sleeves of my sunburned arms
carrying
an appropriate tattoo
and
short filtered smokes
kill
or be killed
this
desert is hot
anything
that moves at night is enemy
fire
in the hole
doesn't
that child have a gun
what
an empty canteen in search of cold water
don't
worry about my buddies around
the
campfire cry
it
only takes one to kill you
dude
let
no man beware
charge
charge of
the
light marine brigade
Kipling
was no veteran
let
other bewares
the
price of victory is a politicians soul
and
a sentry's nightmare
plus
the head of a little boy
forever
lost.
Copyright,
William "Wild Bill" Taylor,
June,
2004
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