These drills ground gone : the moustache bugle call
to trenches Aim soiled uniforms: all that squaddy
getting ready. Attention! once close paid.
Market road blasts scatter matter . tyre
piles set firewalls grievance strong. We down work
tools ditch domino games . rush off to the fray.
Bridge mass could paintball a tank or back track; a lucky
few get to clamber up, wave a Patton V for viral.
Lock limb snap, faith rip felled? Palms will open scoop
you bleeding hoist you drooling prayer east bound . martyr
marked for the idling ambulance (fucking sirens coming
up with shark lust behind you).
No, you won't remain unclaimed in street rubble; count three
two days . one silent night.
Mothers in scarves still wait to scold, wonder if your phone's
gone cold. Your sister's probably with her boyfriend.
^^
What's that, Mr. Owen? no pattern holding at the front?
I know what you mean : happens thick as a thumb click;
lacks a certain decorum est. Some recruits stand rifle
tall.
And that left right sequencing : first
writ styles buckle out of date; then logs of the beast
cut loose > lo, we have a situation.
Yes, yes! totally! so hard
these days to parse futility, spot bravery in all that fist
high howling about.
Stand by : unscathed I'll view again
your shell wail posts . our drone precision.
Spark to inferno : raise or
flag above the fields row knees, pride wear dust all
fear, the gyre's turn.
– W.W.
TWO KNIVES
The defensive dagger of babble
has its handle in the middle
of its blade pointing two ways,
the duller point forwards,
the sharper backwards
into the self
that can't see
either
point.
Real
speech is
a different
knife whose blade points
upward from the gut
into Heaven, and down
like a grounded lightning-pole
that is also a broadcast-tower
feeding both the Earth's roots and her stars.
(from "Within The Wind" © by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 