military

May 4, 2023

UPWARD

The young child stares up into the sky
and sees in the infinite space
countless worlds take form and then die.

On the mesa coyotes cry
seeing gods in what men deface
the young child stares up into the sky

hears his ancestors’ mournful reply
in an atom’s interstitial space
countless worlds take form and then die.

Inside he sees his parents embrace
he would never think to ask them why
the young child stares up into the sky

At the edge of the sun, great planes fly
drop their payloads, return to their base
countless worlds take form and then die.

Tanks and Humvees simply mystify
as young soldiers, brothers wave goodbye
the young child stares up into the sky
countless worlds take form and then die.

First Appeared in The Globe Review, Issue 2, April 2023
https://heyzine.com/flip-book/4f02f9b80a.html

March 20, 2023

HUP TWO

He grew fed up with the Army. He had put in 25 years, but the last five had been totally discombobulated, one snafu after another. Everything was FUBAR and he grew wholly disgruntled with it all. He knew it was time to go, to bail out, and no one tried to stop him, to change his mind. He shipped his uniforms off to Goodwill, grew a beard. He learned to speak vernacular English again, not the military version with its own weird argot. He would be happy, he knew, with this new life. But he wanted more, he wanted to be gruntled, to be fully combobulated, to hell with Merriam-Webster who said he couldn’t because they didn’t exist.

February 19, 2023

BRAD AND I

Its painful to now say it
but perhaps Uncle Sam
got it partially right when
he shaved our heads and
had us march around
Lackland Air Force Base
as the war raged on in Vietnam,
but when you talk about Uncle Sam,
the bar is set rather low.

We did all look ridiculous,
from the large guy who once
was the town bully for certain
to the once chubby guy
sadly grateful he wasn’t
in the Army, (and I’ll let you
guess which I might have been)
and if we doubted for a moment
our sameness the Sarge was
more than willing to remind us.

And since I will one day
be cremated, I take solace
in the fact that my ashes
will be indistinguishable
from those of Brad Pitt.

January 12, 2023

VICTOR

In our time
of never-ending war,
punctured by the briefest
lulls we now call peace,
someone, someones
more likely, will talk
about whom will be
the victor, to whom
shall go the spoils.
Bierce, that perpetual
cynic, reminded us
that peace was a period
of cheating between
two periods of fighting.
But no one pauses
to consider that
in any war there are
no true victors
only the victims
unwillingly offered up
in sacrifice to delusion.

First appeared in Jimson Weed, Volume XLI, New Series Vol. 25, Number 2, Fall 2022
https://view.publitas.com/university-of-virginias-college-at-wise/jimson-weed-fall-2022/

December 3, 2022

WE FIND OURSELVES

We are wholly innocent
we are wracked with guilt.
There is nothing we did,
but what is there that we
did not do, that we
should have done, that we
might have said so it would
never have happened, or
happened less, or happened
despite everything we did?

We carry our innocence
as a badge, we wear our guilt
as an albatross around our neck,
dragging us, slowing us,
forcing us to acknowledge
our guilt, plead our innocence.

In the streets of Ukraine
the war, the destruction continues
as we, the innocent, the guilty
can only watch in horror.

November 22, 2022

WE WANT, AGAIN

We want to cry out,
but we have no words.

We want to scream
but all we give is silence.

We want to curse the invader
but cannot be heard
over the tanks, bombs
and rockets.

We want to mourn
but there are so many
innocents, where
do we begin?

We want to act,
but we are incapable
and can offer
only silent prayer.

November 15, 2022

AND PEACE?

Santayana said, “Only the dead
have seen the end of the war.”
We have grown adept at wars,
no longer global in scope, but
ubiquitous in frequency.

Mine was fought in the rice
paddies of Vietnam, and on the
campus where we struggled
valiantly and vainly to protest,
and when that failed, in the heat
of Texas, marching about, going
thankfully nowhere, shipped
to Niagara Falls when the Air Force
could think of nothing better
to do with the likes of me.

I didn’t die, know several who did
and sadly know Santayana was right
for Bierce said it best, “In international
affairs, a period of cheating
between two periods of fighting.”

November 11, 2022

KYIV

From the moment it began, we knew, it was
obvious that peace and freedom were under assault,
Russia had thrown societal norms to the wind.

Under gunmetal gray skies they attacked by air,
killing women, children, destroying hospitals, homes
raining hell on the innocents with nowhere to turn.
All we could do was watch, pray and offer paltry aid
in the hope that this proud nation could hold out,
negotiate some peace, maintain their freedom,
emerge like the phoenix slowly rising from the rubble.

October 21, 2022

ONE MORE

How many nails does
a simple coffin need?

They hammered another one
today, the largest yet.

We had invited them
to do so it seems.

We were upset by this
but there was nothing we
could really do except
call them out and threaten
to do what exactly
has never been clear.

So we are left to mourn
again the death, knowing
that there can be no
resurrection for Ukraine
and freedom itself
is a step closer to death.

October 6, 2022

LACKLAND

They marched us to the middle
of nowhere, sweat running down
our backs, our olive drab uniforms
now three shades darker.

They handed us a rifle, an M-16
they told us in class, with a 5.56
round, it would tumble after
it hit its target, good for killing.

We lay on the ground, shouldered
the weapon, aimed it at the
target, a bottomless torso and as
instructed, gently pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened, which is what
the Air Force wanted this day
for we were here to know our gun
to befriend it, to cradle it.

Another day we would come back
to the range, take our weapon, assume
the firing position and hopefully watch
the round tear a hole in the target.

And on this day, our sergeant said
we had finally become warriors, then
he quickly took the weapon away,
never for most of us, to be touched again.

First Published in Half Hour To Kill, August 2022
https://halfhourtokill.com/home/lackland-by-louis-faber