Text: Blood, war

[In an email I sent the other day I started fleshing out something that had been in my head. I decided to share it.]

I think about war a lot. A couple of years ago I was into writing about it, even though I had never experienced it firsthand. It's weird trying to imagine what it might've been like. I remember the opening line to my story was:

"Bullets stomped down on the soldiers like Gods in the playing field of mortals." In my head I pictured bullets like rain, silver rain with a destination; a driving force with a purpose. It then prompted me to write a poem, thinking in this perspective. I was interested in Existentialism at the time, it made me think of a dying soldier in his final hours lying against the stone wall of a cell.

[Most of you have read this before, but just a quick reminder -- there is also more to read after the poem.]

The trail of moonlight licks
at my cell floor upon its arrival,
bathing the night's children as they
scurry across my withering leg, fleeing
to find refuge in the shelter of darkness,
calculating spoils thieved from
my rusted and crude plate.

I sit, aimlessly flicking my eyes to
the motion of a moth, mastering
its ability to smack against cracked cell lights.
Its determination so impressive, my hands
might clap to its loyal search for ultimate salvation,
twisted within a hot fuse and a glass case.

Ambition blinds this winged warrior,
who drives into a barrier, leaving
behind cinnamon-colored dust trails, with each
snap of its body to a current of shrinking electricity.

My stomach as empty as my soul,
I wish I had sold the latter for a purpose,
like my silent, fluttering friend above me.
The proprietor of an admirable goal.

My hand slides across sand and stone,
fingers prowling for those who fell
before this new contender in a tireless battle.
Never learning a lesson from the creatures who,
despite their valiant effort struggled in vain,
now lie beside me, in a ruin of their remains.

I've been thinking lately, of the hot soil of Iraq. Pictures that are shown in the media make the place look so empty, so primitive--so red, clouded by the roaming sand given life by the wind. A soldier cuts across the sand, searching desperately for shelter from a barrage of incoming fire. The intense sun breaking through the sandstorm that was once engulfing him, like the patriotism throbbing in his heart, an intensely passionate belief burning in his blood. A bullet finds him; he is mortal. His flesh cracks, splits from the force of a fiery metal; a ticket sending all he stands for back against a wall. He slides down, the grip on his gun loosens. He is wide-eyed; disbelief in his current state. His blood, running hot with his noble purpose flows freely--his body merely a vessel of American pride, stretching Democracy and freedom as far as it will reach. Reaching for his boy, the sun's rays warms his face; a small comfort for a boy who is a long way from home. The warmth slips. The boy's eyes fall--the sensation of losing all feeling, a fleeting rush as if he is falling out of his body--the sun's rays become a reaching hand trying to connect him back to the world. He can't grab hold. What does he find? What does he see?