502 War poems

For Joseph Flum When he got to the farmhouse, he rifled through the cabinets, drawers, and cupboards, and his buddies did too. The place was abandoned, or so he thought, and his buddies did too. He tried to talk to people in town, and his buddies did too, but he was the only one whose Yiddish made it across into German. They took his meaning. He, in the farmhouse, took a camera and a gun, but his buddies, who knows. About the gun, it’s also hard to say, but after the war he took up photography, why not, and shot beautiful women for years. Got pretty good at it, and how. Won prizes and engraved plates, put them in a drawer, forgot the war, forgot his buddies, forgot the women, forgot the drawer.

MAY 3, 1863 When Clifford wasn’t back to camp by nine, I went to look among the fields of dead before we lost him to a common grave. But I kept tripping over living men and had to stop and carry them to help or carry them until they died, which happened more than once upon my back. And I got angry with those men because they kept me from my search and I was out still stumbling through the churned-up earth at dawn, stopping to stare into each corpse’s face, and all the while I was writing in my head the letter I would have to send our father, saying Clifford was lost and I had lost him. I found him bent above a dying squirrel while trying to revive the little thing. A battlefield is full of trash like that — dead birds and squirrels, bits of uniform. Its belly racked for air. It couldn’t live. Cliff knew it couldn’t live without a jaw. When in relief I called his name, he stared, jumped back, and hissed at me like a startled cat. I edged up slowly, murmuring “Clifford, Cliff,” as you might talk to calm a skittery mare, and then I helped him kill and bury all the wounded squirrels he’d gathered from the field. It seemed a game we might have played as boys. We didn’t bury them all at once, with lime, the way they do on burial detail, but scooped a dozen, tiny, separate graves. When we were done he fell across the graves and sobbed as though they’d been his unborn sons. His chest was large — it covered most of them. I wiped his tears and stroked his matted hair, and as I hugged him to my chest I saw he’d wet his pants. We called it Yankee tea.

To kill correctly takes calculation. Down to a science. Arsenic cacodylic acid. Know water and rice on a cellular level. Make sure no surviving seed can be collected and planted. Because even a small seed assures survival. Because mortars, grenades and bombs cannot destroy a grain. Because our heart is made of seeds. Know what it takes to kill the seeds. Know what it takes to deprive the plant of water, to dehydrate it. To be surrounded by love but unable to absorb it.

In the chill rains of the early winter I hear something— A puling anger, a cold wind stiffened by flying bone— Out of the north ... and remember, then, what’s up there: That ghost-bank: home: Amchitka: boot hill .... They must be very tired, those ghosts; no flesh sustains them And the bones rust in the rain. Reluctant to go into the earth The skulls gleam: wet; the dog-tag forgets the name; The statistics (wherein they were young) like their crosses, are weathering out, They must be very tired. But I see them riding home, Nightly: crying weak lust and rage: to stand in the dark, Forlorn in known rooms, unheard near familiar beds: Where lie the aging women: who were so lovely: once.

All the hills and vales along Earth is bursting into song, And the singers are the chaps Who are going to die perhaps. O sing, marching men, Till the valleys ring again. Give your gladness to earth’s keeping, So be glad, when you are sleeping. Cast away regret and rue, Think what you are marching to. Little live, great pass. Jesus Christ and Barabbas Were found the same day. This died, that went his way. So sing with joyful breath, For why, you are going to death. Teeming earth will surely store All the gladness that you pour. Earth that never doubts nor fears, Earth that knows of death, not tears, Earth that bore with joyful ease Hemlock for Socrates, Earth that blossomed and was glad ‘Neath the cross that Christ had, Shall rejoice and blossom too When the bullet reaches you. Wherefore, men marching On the road to death, sing! Pour your gladness on earth’s head, So be merry, so be dead. From the hills and valleys earth Shouts back the sound of mirth, Tramp of feet and lilt of song Ringing all the road along. All the music of their going, Ringing swinging glad song-throwing, Earth will echo still, when foot Lies numb and voice mute. On, marching men, on To the gates of death with song. Sow your gladness for earth’s reaping, So you may be glad, though sleeping. Strew your gladness on earth’s bed, So be merry, so be dead.

Near the camp was a river and in our house were absentees and hands that will one day wake us in vain I had just turned seven while he was sitting in the shade ironing his clothes the blue jacket sagging over his shoulders I paid no attention to the road or the three steps and didn't notice the carpet I don't remember who was it that said to me or to another "When you grow up poetry will become your house" The dust that eats the memories always distances those folks yet their chairs appear from afar, from behind the hills and over the houses, to hang in an air of summer and holm oak, those shaded chairs that reach the heart on shoulders topped with five flowers Which flowers are speech which flowers are silence? And I can't remember whether it was my uncle who stood at the door, whether we had palm and lotus trees in our house in Karameh, whether my mother who gave birth to me on the shelf was folding our clothes behind our father's back so he could sleep The watchdogs used to cry from the heat, and poetry, Husseini of Jerusalem, and Khidr the mystic were all in our house as was my uncle who came from a pond within Hebron's walls Twenty years would pass before a photo could tell us we have grown older and that's that My father used to discompose his friends with his days, and women with the thread of seduction in his voice as he would sprinkle chatter in their rivers while walking about here or there with a lilt, he'd let his days fall off him and let others gather them as he walked on gold that came only for him And I can't remember: in our courtyard there were holm oaks, a fountain, a tiled floor by a huge door, we were confused and in a hurry The closet that faced us in the second room had a mirror the mirror we now seek And my father was standing alone in the hall that led the stairs to the roof thanking his days or preparing for Wednesday's nap or Thursday's morning as he left, among the things he'd leave, the water can full of water while around his chairs our Saturdays rose My father didn't want too much from life: a house, five boys who don't mess with his papers, which were already chaos, and two girls so that braids could float all around the house

A Picture from the Life To serve with love, And shed your blood, Approved may be above, But here below (Example shew,) ‘Tis dangerous to be good. --Lord Oxford Deep in a vale, a stranger now to arms, Too poor to shine in courts, too proud to beg, He, who once warred on Saratoga’s plains, Sits musing o’er his scars, and wooden leg. Remembering still the toil of former days, To other hands he sees his earnings paid;-- They share the due reward—he feeds on praise. Lost in the abyss of want, misfortune’s shade. Far, far from domes where splendid tapers glare, ‘Tis his from dear bought peace no wealth to win, Removed alike from courtly cringing ‘squires, The great-man’s Levee, and the proud man’s grin. Sold are those arms which once on Britons blazed, When, flushed with conquest, to the charge they came; That power repelled, and Freedom’s fabrick raised, She leaves her soldier—famine and a name!

Men are trading their bullets for worms. “I spent a lifetime building.” We come down from the mountains. We brought eggs, a table, a windowshade. There were times when we couldn’t bring anything. So many people. As you were walking up the hill and I was walking down, we almost passed each other. But I grasped your arm and backed up. You said: “This is what I look like now.”

The anguish of the earth absolves our eyes Till beauty shines in all that we can see. War is our scourge; yet war has made us wise, And, fighting for our freedom, we are free. Horror of wounds and anger at the foe, And loss of things desired; all these must pass. We are the happy legion, for we know Time's but a golden wind that shakes the grass. There was an hour when we were loth to part From life we longed to share no less than others. Now, having claimed this heritage of heart, What need we more, my comrades and my brothers?

two tours i came back not everyone did i don't talk about the ones who didn't but i think about them every day of my life