Sitting in the morning mist today
(it’s 2 AM. The battle started
early in whistle-shrieks of
incoming artillery shot
from fear’s cannons
and terror’s trenches.
They tore me out of dreams
into this nightmare waking and real).
It’s the day of memory, the day of the dead
(and the living who wish they were)
and the day of me, survivor
of this war on us,
waged from mile
3001.
The sound of sad owls
(like haunts) and elderberry blossoms
(fragrant in the dark) and me inside
a Dresden of memory and fire and sound
and the machine gun prattle of stories
twisting back on themselves in your hands
like snakes striking those wrists
so clumsily tattooed in crude ink and fantasy.
I heard the house creak and groan
(maybe it was just my heart’s hurt moan)
and I swore for a moment I thought
you were there, laying in bed and peace
while your chest rose and fell faithfully
and your face, wreathed in blond curls
that smell like Heaven’s very bakeries
still in sacred rest and repose…
I fought my way back
and across the years
to where you lay, then, there
to have but one whiff yet again
of those locks of gold and God
to sustain me in the midst
of this uncanny clumsy conflict,
this war of atrocious inattention
but your room was empty
(my mailbox is empty)
and it turned out the house
was just grieving for its loss,
the house is empty
and my heart is lonely
and the spray of sorrow begins
to anoint the roof from the skies
and soothes the ache of loss,
the lovelorn lack of presence
and the absence of any laughter.
I never dreamed that you were
the kind of person who just sashays in
and then waltzes right out
of my life while I am
making music in 4/4 time
but if I really think about it,
I remember the time you were
last here and as you left you
flashed your eyes dark at me,
filled with orange fire that smelled
like burnt chocolate and you spoke
silently with that glance
straight into my heart, a look that
was a blade slicing thru the music,
(that dissonant dance)
and you said in one glance
that you wished my mother had
had an abortion
instead of me…
In that moment, the tide turned
in this war on us, and I had
a flash of insight that would
make Lorenz so jealous:
I knew who the
Unknown Soldier was
and always would be.
Charissa's Grace Notes 
Beautiful and haunting, and with a devastating twist. The alliteration is an interesting effect throughout. Echoing the repetitious guns of the battlefield, perhaps? Reminds me of Anglo Saxon poetry, which had the knack of being both martial and metaphysical.
YES!! That is indeed it…the structure of the poem seeking to mirror the song of it, and the song of it seeking to push your heart deeper into the fabric and foundation of the construction of it, until you are shrouded in your own vicarious experience of this and then sent drifting on the tides of your own memories to the various wars you have endured…
as to the Anglo Saxon poetry, wow! I really don’t know anything about that…so it could be my ancestry raising it’s fierce head? I am half Scots and half Huguenot, so you can see that I am doomed by very blood! lol
Thank you as always, my friend, for being a courageous and committed heart to reach in under the blanket of my words and feel the true meanings.
THIS:
“I heard the house creak and groan
(maybe it was just my heart’s hurt moan)
and I swore for a moment I thought
you were there, laying in bed and peace
while your chest rose and fell faithfully
and your face, wreathed in blond curls
that smell like Heaven’s very bakeries
still in sacred rest and repose…
I fought my way back
and across the years
to where you lay, then, there
to have but one whiff yet again
of those locks of gold and God
to sustain me in the midst
of this uncanny clumsy conflict,
this war of atrocious inattention.”
Oh, gosh…and are you kidding me with the end?!?!??
Just beautiful.
Beautiful.
BEAUTIFUL.
Thank you, Sis…of all people besides Jane, really only you know the curls and ramifications and echoes in heart hallways of these words.
I am honored that your fingers drip of its fragrance, and dipped into its deepest flow…and of course here is a lil nugget you know already:
I wrote this on Memorial Day, and gave it a title to misdirect those looking for that, and sought to make it applicable on a level there, for a casualty of war, and yet wind its way back by the end to hint of sumfin else…Something Else
and my deepest joy? At last we know each other, and you KNOW that often my most optimistic and fertile faith statements are hidden like silver in dark cloudy cloaks…