an old battlefield

"You can always tell an old battlefield where many men have lost their lives. The next spring the grass comes up greener and more luxuriant than on the surrounding countryside; the poppies are redder, the corn-flowers more blue. They grow over the field and down the sides of the shell holes and lean, almost touching , across the abandoned trenches in a mass of color that ripples all day in the direction that the wind blows. They take the pits and scars out of the torn land and make it a sweet, sloping surface again. Take a wood, now, or a ravine: In a year's time you could never guess the things which had taken place there.

I repeated my thoughts to my wife, but she said it was not difficult to understand about battlefields: The blood of the men killed on the field, and the bodies buried there, fertilize the ground and stimulate the growth of vegetation. That was all quite natural, she said.

But I could not agree with this, too-simple, explanation: To me it has always seemed that God is so sickened with other men, and their unending cruelty to each other, that he covers the place where they have been as quickly as possible."

- William March
(Company F, Second Battalion, 5th Marines - 1917-1918)
"Company K"

The Man With The Pigeons

you said you want
the man
with the pigeons

i can give you
his image
in black and white

a freeze frame
blurred wings

i can give you
his image
in color

a spoken word
sharp memories

what i can't give you
is the feeling

figures

that's what you live on.


[2003]

on the roof, 2005

Sitting on the roof, in the light from my window so I can see to write things, I love the breeze and think about my shadow. It's not a very distinguished one, like you might think Einstein or Lincoln or maybe Bill Murray have distinguished shadow, or maybe the shadow of the statue of the Thinker, or even someone like Ann Landers. It's just a regular shadow, cause by blocking the light source, and shows rounded shoulders, poor grip on a pen, loose hair getting in my eyes and a pair of glasses. The fact that I can't see my shadow without turning to look at it reminds me of the quest I had when younger to see what I looked like in a mirror when I wasn't looking at it. This could be partially accomplished by getting right up close to the mirror and looking slightly aside, demurely, to catch yourself out of the corner of your eye....

....I want to lie on rooftops in hoodies with her and look at stars and not talk.

I'll never make it to cynic level. I always have the last hope of a romantic.

No signs from the sky tonight. A cloud-map of the eastern seaboard over to Russia and a shooting star, which I did wish on, despite their poor success rate in the past. Peepers, distant traffic, a windchime that's managing to toll [bell-like] and fragments of a poem that I probably won't write; black pen, blue book, blue jacket, black shirt socks and shoes, brown pants and shingle grit. A faint smell of lilacs and the red light of the radio tower.

...How badly do I hope she sees things painfully like I do.
How badly do I hope I find someone I can relate to who isn't ramped up on antidepressants.
I quit mine. And started smoking again.
Balance and harmony and lung cancer.
The way of the world.

Sarcasm is probably the best passive-aggressive defense mechanism ever evolved.


Maybe I am getting closer to cynicism. It's getting much easier to deal with a letdown. Follows the by-now horribly recognizeable pattern. Resignedly recognizeable. It sucks. Give me something new to deal with instead of the gradual waning. Explode. Just do SOMETHING.

I need to go do something destructive or visceral.... I never do. Just let it settle like sediment in a glass. Waiting for something to come along and mess up the layers. And there's a lot of layers.

It's not exactly cynicism. It's just getting progressively more and more bitter. Sour taste washes out with stronger and stronger substance.


This is the last summer of my life.
I don't know what that means yet,
but there's some truth somewhere that I am missing.
I wonder how so many people can so easily classify themselves as happy.
Maybe I'm just more fucked than I thought.


How do you see me?
and, similarly,
how do you see yourself?

I see needing other people as a weakness because I'm not good at dealing with needing other people.

stargazing

I swear I saw a hemisphere tonight
in nighttime cloudy bas-relief.
From West Pennsylvania to maybe Moscow.
Ocean of dark and stars
Norway, fjords drifting, full of shooting stars,
Ireland, misshapen.
As Washington and Baghdad disappeared behind black trees
Britain whispered "Ave" and melted in the blackout
And I swear the frogs across the pond behind me
Laughed louder; and freedom kissed.

[2005]

August 4, 2003. 11.53 AM

when our lives connect they will be changed. for better or worse is uncertain.

I hope that it is
for the better


though I've never been accused
of being an optimist.

July 29, 2003. 6:50 PM

I am content
to sit on my roof
in my beat-up old pants
black shirt
and no shoes
and watch
hummingbirds.

July 21, 2003

The humidity is broken, or rather is in the process of breaking, by means of a lovely thunderstorm. It's evening dark outside and the rain is soakingly torrential, the way rain should be. Thunder is rippling across the sky. Lightning flashes. I love this weather.

The rain is coming down in sheets, sweeping over the garage roof. There's even the hint of a tornado warning. Flicker flicker flash. I remember last year stripped to the waist, playing Eggy with the guys over by the elementary school.

There was just one of those flashes of lightning that makes you cringe in anticipation of the thunder, and it smashes over the neighborhood.

Ernie used to hate these. He'd always hide underneath the computer table, next to the power cords for whatever reason.

Further rumbling, growing distant. From my military studies I can't help but think of artillery explosions.

Gram used to tell me that thunder was the sound of the angels bowling.

I always used to wonder if my grandfather was a good bowler.

Someone just split the sky in half, anyway. Zeus rolled a strike, is getting cheers from Apollo and Aphrodite, while Athena keeps score and Hera wonders when exactly Zeus will be home to feed the dog and maybe get the kids from soccer practice. Except all the kids are watching the Old Man bowling cause damned if he ain't all kinds of good at it.

The sky is clearing up in the west. The storm/game is almost over. My stereo and computer are both broken, which is good because it got me out onto the porch to watch the rain.

A few last desultory rumbles, and it's all over. Everything washed clean, the air clear, the sky turning light, and all things shining.