three older poems.

Beating Day out on a Drum.

The sun rose.

we all stood at attention as the trucks

loaded with

my cousin,

his brother,

your friend,

rolled past at three miles an hour.

The bodies, stretched out at attention

side by side.

Five trucks worth.

I got permission to go back behind our lines,

to see if he was alive.

When we started school, we were both six years old

and the building still smelled like shoe blacking and pine,

the doors still laughed on shining hinges,

looking up into the new moon.

“How was it?”

“I couldn't feel the ground.”

He pulled out a photo of Leah.

I whistle low,

for the fiftieth time.

“Hot item right there.”

He laughs, kisses her,

slides her back into his chest pocket

left side.

Five times they charged the hill

before they were called back.

Word is they've given up

on that inflection

on my map.

I wind my trail back towards my naked hill,

ignoring the broken, crying flesh around me.

Dry, cracking tent flaps squeal up into the wind

as the old man looks down and down

from his perch on the sliver of frail light.

I am my own dream

and I will let no man shake me awake

to shrinking reality.

I walk the mile and a half,

the craters in the road forcing the trucks to a crawl.

But still,

to be alone

away from the mob,

to stumble over roots

and curse the emptiness

is welcome.

To stop and rest

on the sawed off trunk

that I sight over every night.

Up and up,

nod to the men leaning back,

hyenas in the trenches.

Nervous, fearing the night.

But the laughter does nothing

to drive the demons from our position.

I drop into the box,

the navel of our hill,

pick up my binoculars.

Scanning the jagged ground

I see a hill a mile,

maybe two,

from me,

and two men.

He slowly lifts the butt of his rifle to strike,

He cowers under an arm,

and both are embraced

in a fuming pire

and fade,

into the sunset.

The Rite.

Something was missing,

and it was there to stay.

He'd left it gnawing

in neatly tuned rows

and it slowly ground

out a melody,

slow,

slow,

slow.

In time to the pitter fleeting

ghost that stood and sang

those familiar words -

     “It is well

     and with his soul

     is severed.

     How sounding sweet,

     is grace amazing.”

And then we all stood,

“Aye, verily, aye.”

And the rite was passed

round,

round,

round.

In time to the vapit, vapit

feet, slaying time.

Laying him to rest.

Carousel.

deciding on whether the wandering is blameless,

     can be hypnotizing.

she walked in jagged circles...around...around...around...

     an empty carousel.

She was lost. not knowing which horse she had started from.

     was killing her.

Every time she completed her turn and moved towards the beach

     growing from the feet of a red stallion,

the man with the cane sitting on the blue bench between the giraffe and antelope

     tipped his cap towards her.

But she just swallowed hard, pretending not to see, and quickened her step

     almost to a jog.

slipping in the sand again, she muttered under her breath, and looked back

     at him, hoping hating to see him watching.

but he was turned towards her backwards wheeling footfalls

     his hand on the brim of his cap.

she began the circuit for the twelfth time, but as he tipped his cap she lost her courage,

     and fell beside the belly of an alligator

the toddlers had ridden him, with a parent on either side, holding their hands

     and laughing along.

the teeth were longer than she had thought from a distant glance, discolored and reddening

     it was an empty carousel.

But she just swallowed hard, pretending not to see, and quickened her breath

     almost cradling her lungs in her mouth

before she saw the cane resting on the mouldering snout.

     puncturing the rotten wood.