ALL RESPONSES |
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Time doesn’t undo
itself like a cuckoo clock, unwind
and sing a new song. It chimes the same
every hour, always.
Some things cannot
be undone.
Grandfather waits for nothing in particular
while listening to the tick-tock
of his heartache clock, seven years
after she flew away—
leg dangling from the right side of her bed;
as though she'd tried walking to Jesus.
His heart needs new batteries; pacemaker promise of
six more months—another surgery.
“No more intervention,” he chimes.
Grandmother who throws the grandest parties—still,
believes herself to be Obama’s au pair—
always in a rush to the Oval Office
of the respite home.
“These girls run me ragged;
there’s never enough time” she puffs, proudly.
Grandfather who divorced her two decades ago
has forgotten time. Forgotten himself.
Grateful though, for the nice young woman
who helped him into the bathtub.
Naked and wilted, “Who are you?” he asks
of his daughter,
holding the terrycloth towel.
Three clocks run—
analogue, dialogue, digital
one minute closer
to forgetting.
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| During World War 1, the first Audrey Lees would sit side-by-side a wounded soldier and share her blood. She would watch the fluid leave her arm and entered his. Two bodies united; very satisfying. |
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You’ve seen it before, in a weathered album,
dug up from the bottom of a chest brought
down from your parents’ dusty attic.
A black and white photo of a young man
in uniform, circa World War II. Read it.
It says,
Optimism, Victory, A new life
Work hard and you’ll make it
Wife, family, house on a tidy block
Car in the garage
Hold down a steady job
Life is a challenge, a gift, a pleasure,
an opportunity, a carnival, a feast.
A celebration, success, journey, and
an exploration into a beautiful world.
Today, look around at people.
What do you see? |
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War is war.
Say it
in a smug
smile,
in a shrug,
in a body bag.
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his hands fold loose young color of caramel
color of youth warm calm
eyes soft reflective know he is handsome
another Robert Mitchum
the girls call him Bobby
his smile slightly bent elusive
fills his uniform with his body
elastic too new to falter
body of his father once removed
mothers hands brush against his cheeks
her tears wash salty eyes clean
he has stepped into his own life
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The probability of life
is overwhelming
during war;
it’s people who live
in oblivion that we owe
our true freedom
Don’t let the wind
sweep away your grey ash
and your young, handsome
face no one shall ever spoil |
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Long before the time of cell phones
and GPS devices,
you palm the quarter into my hand,
long after you first felt
the sting of fear,
anti-aircraft guns
targeting you over
the heavy cover of jungle.
Long after mom lectured me
about boys and escape,
I'm almost out the door
on my first date.
Put the quarter in your shoe,
you tell me.
And call me if you need
anything I’ll find you,
you promise,
if you get lost.
Long after you held
silk maps of the Pacific
not yet faded
because they won't melt,
like paper in water,
like your paper urn
at Minnehaha Creek
and over the falls.
I keep a jar of quarters
at my bedside, a beacon
back to you
beckoning you to me. |
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it’s hard to believe
you were ever
that young
younger than my
youngest son
who looks
so much like you
you were proud
of your service
you never saw
any action
and sorry for that
but i’m glad
because
you returned
from the war
unchanged
later to become
the kindest
gentlest
father a girl
could ever wish for
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Every night, mother heard you whimper
in the master bathroom; she sat awake,
and her heart could not break evenly
because she did not know why you were wrecked.
She did not see the thatched roofed huts
all ablaze and gloried--
she did not know you left a son there,
or how, each day, you worried
if you would get to see him after death,
or after a life that was not living.
She did not know what help she could give
to your heart so rent and riven.
You worshipped at the altar of keep-it-in,
or that of cry-until-you-are-healed;
you confessed one night, and still regressed again
to those days of military son--
those days before the country lost its good name--
after drafted missiles flying all around--
your memories so like missiles now--
your stories pent in open graves.
And your son still wanders free, you guess, but now
there is the aftermath of missing pictures. The dress
uniform of looking long ways over empty seas,
and dreaming, and forever leaving. |
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Back from the war in '46,
freshman at MTC
with purple feet and legs.
"It's the medicine--gentian violet,"
all they had to fight this
south sea fungus--
Jungle Rot, you called it.
It kept coming back,
finally faded away
with removal to a temperate climate.
With money from my part-time court house job,
I bought you a cigarette lighter
for fifteen dollars, your initials
engraved on it,
and five packs of Chesterfields
for fifteen cents a pack.
Veterans' benefits.
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in which the poet has nothing to say
about a boy in a hat,
fathers, family,
the devastation of war --
love, death,
neckties, hands,
the color blue --
nothing, just
the yowl of a tomcat,
the hum of white noise,
the lullaby of whiskey,
the beat of a tired heart. |
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the pictures even
deepen and vanish
like a prayer
flown from hands
like a smile
flashed with fear.
the prose of our days
poses
still
praying for
flight
fearing a smile
that tells
more than a
story
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They painted the sides of planes
with beautiful cheesecake girls.
Girls that were worth the fight.
Girls that made it worth living.
Tore open horrible foreign cities
to find their sweet American girl. |
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| not all that comes from war is bad. for instance, my microwave was pioneered through military might. the jet engine, and flight in general, would be so much less in size and speed without the need to drop bombs toward the crosshair’s sight. and can you imagine what maps would look like without a view from space? the visions of this city have deeply benefitted from a view of the lines and borders traced from miles above. but it is hard, you know, to remain constant and upbeat when you hear of families’ woes--of love--of, Well, he or she just did not show up for their birthday, never again, and then there was the parade, and the flag laid across the top of an empty place. but it is not all bad. it is not all, Oh, we wish, or, Can you imagine the children they could have had it all. it is not just doldrums and doom, but maybe, maybe, it should be for today, before one of such kind is laid to rest in a newly swept out tomb. |
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It’s funny how war can haunt a man.
He saw
women
and children
die, or dead
but the
only time
he cried
was when
a dog
stepped on
a landmine
and was
blown to bits.
The dog might
have saved him
but that wasn’t
what struck him
at the time, or
even still and
the dog
didn’t make him
homesick.
It was just that
he really loved
dogs.
He came home.
He still has women,
and children.
But he won’t have
a dog.
That’s what war took away from him. |
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