No man left behind

I never wanted a man in uniform.
Though, I always did have the talent
for attracting what I didn't want, as
if life was teasing me

with some screwed up game of
permanent "opposite day."

No, military men were away too much;
couldn't wrap my brain around the torture
of loving and lusting for someone too
far away to hypnotize with

a flash of flesh, lotion bottles
in every latrine.

I didn't dream of sharing a bed
with a Marine whose nights were filled
with machine gun fire, whose train of
thought always returned to the

secrets that made him cry out
in his sleep.

He startled so easily. Called himself a
chicken for not wanting to go back
a fourth time; knowing no amount of
liquor could make him forget

how this war had already broken
him beyond repair;

no longer one of the few good
men, though Semper Fi still ran through
his blood -- a brotherhood, loyalty, gimmick to
sell all of us on the

idea that no man would ever
be left behind.

--
Sunday Whirl #182 -- machine, lust, liquor, tease, flesh, trains, gimmick, chickens, torture, lotion, hypnotizing, brains, uniform

Forget me not

Some would say it was
yours to give.

You probably would have said
the same thing.

But I would give anything
to forget you,

to un-remember your life slipping
through my hands

in a place so damn
far from home.



--

April PAD Day 16 - elegy

The hunting

We teach them to hunt
packs of brothers
praying they won't have to

use what they've learned, but
knowing full well
that one day they will

kill without hesitation
and hope they
never hunger for that power


--

April PAD Day 13 - animal

If I Were Your Heart

For Ryan ... I found your blog, reading the a heartbreaking ending just as the blood moon crept through the sky

If I were your heart
I'd be crushed
by the weight of those memories,

brothers bleeding before my eyes,
faces flushed red
like tonight's moon, eclipsed by the

darkness of my own shadow

--

April PAD Day 14 - If I were (blank)

"Words can't express ..."

They were waiting on her front porch
when she walked up the driveway
after a long day at the shoe store.

Their uniforms were crisp and clean.
Even from here she could see the shine
of their polished brass-colored buttons.

Even now as the sun was setting, she
could see the glints of light bouncing off
them as they waited for her.

They could have been there for hours,
standing somber and still, just as he had
for so many formal occasions.

And in the military, it all seemed formal.
They always stood so tall, proud, patient, official.
These two were the same, brothers

in a family she didn't yet understand,
staring at her and knowing perhaps
that she had expected,

no, dreaded, the day that the man in
the crisp, clean uniform on her front porch
was not her husband.

She wished she were back on the express
train, back at work, surrounded by the stale
smell of socks and sweat,

anywhere but here, walking this impossible road


April PAD Day 17 - express