The Sandbag Times Issue No:32

From definite space
When a Son Goes Off to War
I walk out into the world alone at dusk
watch blackbirds with no strategic plan,
mission, or vision gather in the naked
tree.
Hundreds of them fly in for this
impromptu session,
where they put their wings together and
form
an ark of shadow, a coalition between
light and dark,
while from branches, decisions scatter
in the air.
Filled with privilege like never before,
I open myself to the visual world
where doctrine and creed do not matter
so even God finds himself amongst
their turning eyes looking West,
knowing everything we long to know
about how light ends
and darkness has its way.
From art lessons
Walter Reed Army Medical facility
December, 2009 for RJ
Early morning, I gather soft murmurs on
the hotel shuttle:
The first surgery nicked his colon, ten
more after that
His dad left on Saturday
Mom leaves on Sunday
A sister leaves Wednesday
An aunt arrives on Thursday
Inside every heart, there’s a painting, one of oil never drying.
Inside these walls are portraits of life impossible to render.
One canvas offers:
an Army Champlain around a make-shift altar in the jungle;
one chopper hovers overhead.
The soldiers’ hands are folded, heads bowed.
If there is a silence beyond silence, here it is.
As though on skateboards,
legless boys cruise the grounds on electronic devices.
Sisters and mothers chase them.
Someone tries to tell me the left leg is target,
key seat in the hummer, but I see the right gone too.
I see the middle of nowhere.
I see the nothingness.
I digest the cost for freedom.
These days the wound is left open until signs of infection are gone.
I wish you could cut the heart open, mend it
then let it drain and dry for days in the sun.
Second canvas provides: a priest washing a soldier’s feet.
Some days, I think there is nothing holy left.
But if there is a holy beyond holy, I’ll take it in.
We lie on soft mats with soldiers in meditation.
She tells us to forget about ourselves,
introduces us to each part of our being.
I whispered to myself no more war poems. I told myself that.
Three a.m. First Call from Baghdad
Like screaming maniacs,
we plummet
down the flight of stairs
could have easily broken
all our legs.
The sharp pierce
of the ring’s limited life
find the phone
find the phone
where the fuck is the phone
here it is
here it is
then
your voice so sane.
War poem
Since we came to this field with pain
is this the path where love should end?
As wild lupine diminish
and secrets of the garden unfold.
What is told is mostly sorrow.
We filled this prairie with so much sorrow.
We took our hands
and threw grief to the wild.
It took it for a while, but then the deer
who once came, left for good.
Their sudden darting disappeared.
Even the bunnies are now just clay
a statuary of their lives
before we entered.
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