War Memories I and II

Some dark stuff from a while ago...written sometime 1987-1990

I. DEAD COMRADES
        

Black bodies bubble,

Silently charred,

In death's dark doorways.
        

Drowning.

The bell tolls.
        

Obsoletion.
        

Spasms of facial contortion,

Through which they no longer smile.

Under fire,

Under siege.
        

Screams,

Shattered minds,

All manner of broken dreams.
        

Unspun,

In destiny's web.
        

Undone,

In time.
        

Made to die.
        

Congealed,

Without hope,

Unchanged by molding hands,

Unsurpassed in illness,
Undreamt.

        

Picture a thread through a needle,

The needle in your life,

Poking you,

Mocking your heart,

Killing you.
        

It sees beyond the facade,

Through which you try to smile.

       

II. POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

        

The demons in the dream scream,

Flickering as flames in a grate,

Whirling flitting incandescence,

Rising upwards,

Born upwards,

In an orange tinted half light,

Floating upwards,

Born upwards,

Spiralling,

Spinning,

Taunting you they float,

Haunting,

Grinning.

A bed in the middle of a floor,

A room with no walls,

Windows with cracked pains,

Shattered shards cut you,

Pierce your soul,

Your spirit hidden from you,

You lie alone,

Your head in your hands,

Nail biting,

Perpetual grimness.

 And all there is,

A vision,

Through mists and rain,

Of words swirling,

Of poetry peeping through keyholes,

When you're sleeping,

Of delightful escapism and happy moments,

They taunt you,

And are gone,

Even before hands can grasp them.
        

Pin your thoughts to the ground,

Hang your head alone,

There's no speaking when you drown.


A dark poem about war and its consequences on the human spirit. It was written in early 1991 around the time of the Iraq War... I found the report of the bombing of the road to Bazra particularly harrowing.