Soldier Poets

November 11, 2021

“Stone Seas” by Keith WilsonPosted by

Keith Wilson

STONE SEAS

that hold your ship
to its course dead
into the gunfire
ahead, a course
charted long before
on stone paper, with
a stone channel
for the ship to go
into battle with its
own stone Operation
Order, there is no
changing the sea
and little chance
of changing the Order

and you, what are you
but stone too, your
binoculars clasped
in your tight hands
while the bright flowers
of war engrave
the skies above you.

—from Rattle #13, Summer 2000
Tribute to Soldier Poets

__________

Keith Wilson: “Naval Academy graduate, Korean War vet, former college professor, now retired in my native state of New Mexico, I collect old fountain pens and participate in an extremely active art community in the Las Cruces-El Paso area.”

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October 15, 2020

“Almost Flying” by R.G. CantalupoPosted by

R.G. Cantalupo

ALMOST FLYING

after Amichai

If, just once, we could’ve made
a flying machine, or at least
a winged creature of some kind,
gilded light as a kite over that
dark spine of mountain beyond
our bedroom window or even
floated like shadowy zeppelins
along our candlelit walls … But
whenever we tried we fell deeper
into the black hole of our bodies,
became spiders, beetles, worms,
rootbound things burrowing
inside the belly of earth, hungry.
No, even our best design—the one
we kept coming back to—looked
more like a grasshopper than
a bird. Still, for almost an hour,
we could be happy like that, bounc-
ing from shoot to shoot, my thigh
rubbing madly against yours, now
and then a sound rising, a high note
made of friction, a cricket-like song.

—from Rattle #13, Summer 2000
Tribute to Soldier Poets

__________

R.G. Cantalupo: “I’m a full-time writer these days. I seem to have more desire now than ever, and am getting younger every day.”

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November 7, 2019

“Summer Memory” by Pauline HebertPosted by

Pauline Hebert

SUMMER MEMORY

After the peace, after the broken
loves and failed career,
after the too many moves,
the too many hospitals, so sure
of their cures,
after the therapy, the falling naked
through the glass, after the therapy,
their long incantations into futility,
after the other man,
the thousand moments of rage
in his heart, after the ring,
the broken pacts, the lies,
all around us like roaches,
we survived on the edge,
trying somehow to live together.
My sister, brother climb
to the shuttered cottage
where I stay secluded.
I try to make them see
I can’t be a lunatic,
but here—somehow,
among the birds and trees,
the man’s trappings strewn
indecently over the furniture,
among the animals—we answer to no one,
somehow—here, is a future.
Today my brother pats my cheek
as if to relive the past
the times I beat the odds
when the war had not intruded
in the black days of the ’60s,
and my sister hugs me,
all but an illusive hope
of recovery left,
or no longer for me, that wish.

—from Rattle #13, Summer 2000
Tribute to Soldier Poets

__________

Pauline Hebert: “As a young registered nurse, I signed a two-year direct contract and volunteered for a tour in Vietnam with the Army Nurse Corps. I arrived there two weeks before the 1968 Tet Offensive. Retired after a long career nursing, I now spend a lot of time bird watching. I’ve written poetry since I was able to hold a pencil, and it has been my lifeline to the world, helping me to find meaning in my everyday experience.”

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March 1, 2018

“Tracers” by Robert BordenPosted by

Robert Borden

TRACERS

There’s a hard rain falling
on the road up to Hill 65
just past sundown

I am in the back of a troop truck
trying to breathe
through the sheets of water,
too tired to care
about the tracers
streaming over the truck
in red glares

I bow my head in the rain
and try to sleep

—from Rattle #13, Summer 2000
Tribute to Soldier Poets

__________

Robert Borden: “I served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, 1968–1969. I’ve also worked as a journalist, mural artist, and photographer.”

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December 15, 2016

“For the Missing in Action” by John BalabanPosted by

John Balaban

FOR THE MISSING IN ACTION

Hazed with heat and harvest dust
the air swam with flying husks
as men whacked rice sheaves into bins
and all across the sunstruck fields
red flags hung from bamboo poles.
Beyond the last treeline on the horizon
beyond the coconut palms and eucalyptus
out in the moon zone puckered by bombs
the dead earth where no one ventures,
the boys found it, foolish boys
riding buffaloes in craterlands
where at night bombs thump and ghosts howl.
A green patch on the raw earth.
And now they’ve led the farmers here,
the kerchiefed women in baggy pants,
the men with sickles and flails, children
herding ducks with switches-all
staring from a crater berm; silent:
In that dead place the weeds had formed a man
where someone died and fertilized the earth, with flesh
and blood, with tears, with longing for loved ones.
No scrap remained; not even a buckle
survived the monsoons, just a green creature,
a viney man, supine, with posies for eyes,
butterflies for buttons, a lily for a tongue.
Now when huddled asleep together
the farmers hear a rustly footfall
as the leaf-man rises and stumbles to them.

—from Rattle #13, Summer 2000
Tribute to Soldier Poets

__________

For more on John Balaban, visit his website.

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