Out Of Character

Every now and then I shift gears from News stories to something personal. Today I wanted to share some poems from a book that I wrote. I hope you enjoy and leave comments!! :) I will post more poems later today :)

Military Poems:


Watch

O-dark-thirty, as far as I can tell.
Twigs snap in cadence as the leaves double-time past
The wolves battle-cry scaring the piss from the clouds

We lie in the prone, stiff as rigor mortis
aiming out at the night from our shallow graves,
hiding in red light discipline.

Scanning out the chasm as one mound
melts into another. The moon rests upon tree canapés
mockingly counting the galaxies. None of the mounds are moving.

Our ready arms rest but remain reactionary
musing over the muted stagger and lurid breath
that crashes upon us muffling our reflexes.

In a nearby hasty, sparks and shadow trails
look like comets falling through rainforest fatigues.
Their position now blown, I relax and blow mine.

Rain ambushes the seam of my shelter-half then
plummets in a HALO mission taking occupancy.
Invading from all sides like the Tet Offensive.

Whispers in the grass sing me sadistic lullabies.
If I die....box me up and....
Pin my metals.... mom I did my best.

The air clots with the carbon emissions
lingering from the spent chambers.
Narcissistic stars gaze at their reflection in the brass.

I put my cigarette in my cargo pocket and
take aim at a protrusion from the ground. It’s still-
probably nothing; I flip my sight regardless.

I wait for the onslaught wearing a cloak
of Audie Murphy with 40 rifles to pass,
but only time does.

The moon has convoyed with clouds.
The grounds rumor with tank fire
as apparitions rise in a haze.

O-five-thirty. The shadows take cover
from fiery heat-seekers. The mounds are still.
I rest upon my K-pot and count the galaxies.



Highway 80
From Kuwait to Basra

Looming like London fog,
incinerated flesh still soaks the sandbox
like a forty year flood. Two-by-two they dissipated.
None were spared as powder filled capsules exploded
like meteors compositing grains to glass and creating
caramelized erosions deep into the dunes
begetting a vaporous junkyard. Charcoaled
skin molded to the steering wheel of an overturned Chevy
flaps in the breeze; a posthumous flag of surrender.
We recon through the rusted panels for souvenirs praying
they are not rigged with explosives, looking over
both shoulders as if they are still there watching. Still
twenty or thirty clicks away from our Kabals we
felt uneasy as the incoherent whispers of fallen combatants
lingered; bouncing back and forth against rapid breaths.