Asia’s Rain

Nothing warms the pain
in the depth of
the mud which lines my
world, below the surface of
this freezing river, this
universe which sweeps along
or laps at my body
above and below the water.
Will I ever rest?
Stop stirring up the mire that is
me?
From what cold dreams come
loving words and the safety of
you?

At mile twenty-three
I feel something wiggle
inside my left calf,
like a fetus kicking.

At mile twenty-four
I begin a list
of all the things
I don’t care about
right now:
the election,
my stock portfolio,
world peace.
My left calf is not
on the list;
the fetus has grown
and kicks twice.

One mile remains
and three-hundred-eighty-five yards.
My left calf has miscarried.
I cry at the loss.
My right calf has apparently
also conceived.

The crowd cheers me on
like a mass
of birthing coaches:
You can do it!
Come on!
Almost there!
Push!

After three hours of labor
there are no miles left,
no yards.
I cross the line exhausted.

I have given birth to nothing
but I am as proud
as a new father.

Come home tonight; there’s nothing more to say.
This phone is cold against my eager ear
and every word will serve to guide the way.

I hear your voice in time through some delay,
the words, your own, though this is what I hear:
come home tonight; there’s nothing more to say.

I got here in the morning, yesterday.
Your message was recorded, almost clear,
and served with every word to guide the way.

It wasn’t cold, although the sky was gray.
You left a thoughtful note to calm my fear–
“Come home tonight; there’s nothing more to say”

I saw you in my mind, you kneeled to pray.
Your soul, a welcome comfort lingered near
with words that served to guide me in its way.

I found your book, your chair, a place to stay
where every thought was free to shed a tear.
Come home tonight; there’s nothing more to say,
and every word will serve to guide the way.

As I cooled I awoke
and felt the heat
and smelled the smoke
which never really seemed to clear away.

I was rolled into a machine
with a million of my brothers,
all the same, exactly like the others
with the name .223 stamped firmly on my back.,
then quickly packed
into a cardboard box.

For months I waited,
rattling against my comrades
in the dark, hearing nothing.
Then a jet engine roar.
Then yelling and explosions.
My box was suddenly cracked harshly open
and I fell upon a foreign dusty ground.

I lay there, one round.

I saw the hand of Private First Class Galloway
pick me up, trembling slightly,
wild terror on his face.
Mingled with sweat and resignation,
breathing heavy
with his back against a wall,
he jammed me in his magazine.

He tapped the magazine
once against his Kevlar helmet
and I felt my self slide back,
seated properly
against some mechanism.
The magazine was then forced,
coated with sand and oil,
grating into his weapon.

I felt the bolt release
and kick me forward
locked and loaded,
and I stared straight up the barrel,
past the spiral rifling
and the flower-like flash suppressor
at the hot blue sky.

As PFC Galloway lowered his rifle,
my fate,
I saw in sequence:
a cloud,
a roof,
a wall,
a road,
a man.

Something exploded inside me
and I felt the rush
of the gun barrel
with a heated urgency.

The nameless lieutenant held
a Kalashnikov with a cracked stock,
bound by duct tape.

I rose in my trajectory
above his face
and saw his men fanned out behind him.
One wounded and grimacing in pain.
One desperately pulling at a jammed rifle.
One who looked like his cousin or brother.

Then I fell into his chest.

I tumbled through his gut
and all I saw was red blood
and all I heard was
the ripping sounds of fabric,
and the ripping sounds of flesh,
and the ripping sounds of organs, soft and subtle.

Then there was a dull thud
as I lodged firmly in the bone of his pelvis.

The battle noises eventually subsided
and I briefly heard women wailing,
then shovels full of dirt
thumping against a hollow chest.

It was dark and stank
of rotting flesh
for many months,
and then it was just dark.

It has now been a hundred years.
I never heard who won the war.
I just sleep here,
nestled in the pelvic bone
of one of the war’s casualties.

I often think
about that cloud I saw
in that blue sky
beyond the rifling
and the flower-like flash suppressor.

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Comments: I wrote this at some point during the war in Iraq. I thought it would be interesting to paint an image from the bullet’s point of view. My favorite image from this poem is at the end of the bullet just sitting there, buried, thinking about the things it saw.   This poem received an honorable mention in Winning Writers War Poetry contest in 2004.  It’s also interesting to note that a movie that came out in 2005, Lord of War, has an opening sequence that is strikingly similar to this poem.
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one bare bone stands planted
on a pile of rubble
it signifies no tomorrow
it points the way
at an awkward angle
to the city of sorrow
it shakes in the dust
as the bricks are cleared away
to make room for the rubble
of another day

one bare bone
stripped clean by starving rats
planted high on the stack
of a razed synagogue
is the ghetto standard
the warsaw flag
of an entire nation under-fed
their feet bled
on broken glass
with yellow patches on their backs
they listen to the distant
shaking of a railroad track
an approaching cattle car
which in its rhythm seems to say
i am the way . . .

. . . i am the way
to the city obscured
by the cleanest smoke
where the people choke
on the bones
of starving rats
while mozart’s operas fill the air
and everyone
and no one
seems to care
that time is out of sync
that time is out of sync
and mozart’s operas fill the air
and starving rats
and piles of bricks
and pointing bones are everywhere

——————————————————————————–
Comments: I wrote this in college, as it says, after reading Shulamith Hareven’s story “Twilight.” I had also been doing some research on the Holocaust and came across a book called “The Pictorial History of the Holocaust.” Obviously the images were very disturbing. I also had a very vivid dream one night (shortly before reading these books and writing this poem) of being in a concentration camp. I have some gold crowns on my teeth and in my dream the Nazi guards were pulling the gold teeth out of my mouth.
——————————————————————————–

Love and lies are all your life contains.
This wind-blown dust that heaps upon the sill
will wash away like tears and rain.

You fill your days with words you know are vain;
you fill your night with lonely cries until
love and lies are all your life contains.

With forehead pressed against a cracking pane,
the trickling blood which slowly starts to spill
will wash away like tears and rain.

And in this mood of contemplative pain
through blood-smeared windows visions mock, but still
the love, the lies are all your life contains.

Strength!  Work to do! Bills to pay! Love to feign.
And everything your emptiness can fill
will wash away like tears and rain.

Don’t cry, my child, you’ll only go insane.
That life which can create can also kill.
The love and lies which all our lives contain
will slowly wash away like tears and rain.

The fumes of flesh and blood and sleep
Eke from the stained bed
Where the victim, dead
Of the little death,
Lies naked in a swirl of sweat.

You will never forget
Your first time.
Her mother’s voice
You think you have a choice;
As well you might choose
To live forever.

But do not believe, my dear,
In fairy tales.
Believe in fear
And hate and lust and carnal sin.
There, my love, is where love begins.

It springs from the loins of all virginity.
It comes, it comes, it comes with its felicity
Only through the tearing of the flesh.

Lie down; lie up.
Time for the wolf to sup.
Betray yourself by taking of his sop.
He will not stop.

This is the ritual of the flesh.
This is the fearful, dreamed of sex.
The procreative lie
Is only the bastard child of this rite.

Sleep, sweet child; close your eyes.
Sleep, sweet child, lullabies.
Angels guard your resting sleep.
Pray the Lord your soul to keep.

Blue rain on Monday
freezes before evening
and you slide through
the rest of the week.

Friday night finds you
under a blue neon sign
melting ice-cubes in scotch
in a downtown bar
where the whores
never leave you alone.

One slides your scotch-chilled hand
along her wet thigh
The weather, she sighs
Take me tonight.
I hate being alone
in the rain.

At the third monthly project meeting
We all congratulated each other
At our efficiency and speed
In delivering a competitive advantage
With such a high return on investment
If bonuses were pinned to this alone
We should all be happy at the year’s end
Notes were duly taken
On the presentation decks provided
Each member of the team was given
An assignment or something to report
To their superior
The hour spent, we adjourned
To other projects, other duties
Only a week later did we recall
How pale and quiet Tamara Watts
Had been throughout the meeting
And someone spread the news
That a spot of blood had been found
On the seat of the chair
She occupied that day

Slowly, as the cool, dry air
Pulls the moisture from my hair
Calm of mind and body bare
Remembering the water

Softly, as I drink you in
While you linger on my skin
All but lost, you say you win
Beside the flowing water

Darling, I have drowned before
Wet and weeping on the floor
Wrapped in nothing less or more
Than purifying water

From the dark below the wave
From some damp, beleaguered cave
From the well where madmen rave
Remove me from the water

Mouth and tongue and lips aspire
To their succulent desire
Brought to bear on passion’s fire
Water gives rise to water

Now the desert flowers bloom
Now the child in mother’s womb
Now the falling rains resume
In this season of water