Posts from the ‘Poetry’ Category

love sonnet to a new K-pot

by Randy Brown

You are a hard green bowl to crack apart,
inscrutable like Chinese egg-drop soup.
I trust to you my noodled self—not heart,
not groin—instead, my gray “brain-housing group.”
In old steel pots, we troops could cook our grub,
or use the liners as a pail for brass.
We washed our socks and cocks in helmet tubs,
and settled on those tuffets head or ass.
Your greater weight now floats on donut foam,
and creases lines across my forehead bared—
with leathered sweatband held in place like Rome
once clipped a crown of thorns, my skull is snared.
But, fragile shell that’s spun from Kevlar thread,
you have one purpose: Save my pounding head.

In 2010, Randy Brown was preparing for deployment to Eastern Afghanistan as a member of the Iowa Army National Guard’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry ‘Red Bull’ Division. After he dropped off the deployment list, he retired with 20 years of military service and a previous peacekeeping deployment. He then went to Afghanistan anyway, embedding with Iowa’s Red Bull units as a civilian journalist in May-June 2011. A freelance writer in central Iowa, Brown blogs about military topics at: www.redbullrising.com. His military-themed poetry and non-fiction has appeared in such literary venues as The Journal of Military Experience, Line of Advance, O-Dark-Thirty, The Pass In Review, Scintilla, and Volumes 1 and 2 of the Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors anthology series from the Southeast Missouri State University Press.

I AM More

by Gerardo Novoa

I am more than a transition
An indistinguishable bellow
I am more than a lack of commitment
A sick heart

I am more than a studio apartment
Cordoned off in the city
I am more than just confidence
The medals tell me so

I am a man who committed to service
At uncertain times
I am a future who misses his friends
Sightless to help God sent

If the day is long
I will work through
And in the morning I will show,
I am more than a cigarette drag longed for,
Those familiar smells

I am more than I will try to be today
And more than I will be tomorrow

Gerardo Novoa served with Third Battalion Seventh Marines Kilo Company from 2006 to 2010. During that time he deployed to both Ar Ramadi, and Al-Qa’im Iraq. He now lives in Phoenix, AZ. He is currently attending Arizona State University, and works full time in the early childhood education field.

March 13, 2013 and all things considered

by Kate Holly-Clark

for Angelia Phillips, and other Gold Star mothers out there. Who also serve.

5475 diapers changed

and her game face is on because
today of all days
is five years to the day
her son came home
and today is another day
waiting tables and her son would have expected that
she would be doing this eternally
because mothers are eternal

2737 songs sung after a nightmare

thank you for your service
she says
to the gentleman in the retired military cap
as she takes his order
while the drumbeat sounds in her ear
like it does every year
the carefully measured steps the flag
with miliimeter precision spread
the stonefaced young men and women carrying the box
we are so sorry
we are not your son
it would be us if we could
he was one of us
this is the last and best we can do

3120 hours spent worrying weekend nights after he learned how to drive

you must be military, he says to her,
it’s the military who notice
and she smiles a little crookedly
and says
no i’m just an Army Mom.

9125 hours spent wanting to strangle him for wrangling with his siblings

thank him for his service for me
the old man says
and she escapes
into do you want coffee
and can I get you some syrup
at the other tables

438000 hours missing him since he’s gone, and counting.

On his way out, he asks her if her son is home.

They brought him home to me
five years ago today, sir, she says.
he makes it three steps

and salutes.

Kate is a jeweler, pet-mother, herbalist and storyteller living in semi-rural New Hampshire. She is the daughter of a USCG CPO 3rd Class (Ret.) and counts among her dearest friends veterans of at least three wars.

My Men

by Tom Griffen

All the talk about their women back home
quieted the platoon down. I disappear
to the last time I walked up the stones
to my girl’s stoop on Rush Street.
I had no words and that was OK.

Then one of the men, the usual one,
broke the silence with a roaring belch,
rousing us into a laughter more out of habit
than anything else. Our abrupt return triggered
more empty chatter, keeping us from thinking too much.

I wish for more silence.
I want to pretend to think I can smell
her perfume. I want to sneak through her
neighborhood of lavender-lined walkways.
Nighttime bushes with waxy leaves
that reflect the cushioned glow
of her folks’ orange porch light.
I want to make a final nervous left
toward her house, guided by the smell
of a casserole, no doubt something
she might make for our children
someday. I arrive at her doorstep
with honorable intentions that I’ll never
be able to reveal to my men.
They’ve here come to kill, and so have I.

Tom Griffen enlisted in the U.S. Army and provided rear support during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield. He is currently an MFA student of Poetry at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon. His military writings are inspired by family history, namely his two grandfathers’ WWII and Korean War service (101st Airborne and U.S. Navy Medic, respectively), and his father’s experience in the U.S. Air Force during Vietnam.

Just for a Moment

by Virginia del Casal

Callie stood,
silently,
in the midst of the clamor,
striving to adjust
to the scene before her
and, just for a moment,
quailed
at the bodies and limbs flailed
but rallied quickly
at the 1MC’s strident salvo.
She hurried to a gurney
and straightened the linen just so,
waiting for another wave
of casualties,
either friend or foe.

Virginia del Casal was a Navy nurse and left after just under 8 years of active duty service. She uses writing, poetry in particular, as a means of putting into perspective her experiences while serving in the military.

Vows

by David Bublitz

I, Soldier, do solemnly swear
to take you to be my love

that I will support and defend
in holy matrimony, honor

the Constitution of the United States
in times of sickness and health

against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
I give you my word, name, and life

that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;
to support you in your goals

and that I will obey
for better or for worse

the orders of the President of the United States and
to honor and respect

the orders of the officers appointed over me,
as long as we both shall live

according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice,
until death do us part

So help me God

David R. Bublitz is the son of a veteran. David has completed an MFA at the Oklahoma City University Red Earth program. He teaches journalism courses at Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma, while advising for the student-run CU Collegian newspaper.

The Auditor at Dak Pek

by Frank Light

The wind relays a dialect, guttural, strange.
An irregular regiment debouches out his veins,
Disperses with the dawn.

In the afternoon twin engines drone,
A speck from above or below,
The lay of the land,
River with footbridge, ribbon of sand,
Hills, holes, the house, the huts,
The trees, vines, wires, ravines,
Crops, steps, stakes, paths, laughs,
Snake in the grass,
The highway unpassable, impossible,
Runway to the stars,
Out on the next plane.
All that remains.

As a draftee, Frank Light worked for Civilian Irregular Defense Group Finance, 5th Special Forces Group, in Vietnam 1967-1968. He’s now writing his way through retirement from the State Department. Adaptions from a draft memoir titled Adjust to Dust: On the Backroads of Southern Afghanistan have appeared in literary magazines.

Tug

by F. Stanton Blake

How can the smaller of two vessels be the course decider?
A taut cable linking an elephant trainer to the beast
Internal will and force can make even the seemingly impossible happen.
Millions of pounds of freight

I’ll get your cheap Chinese stuff delivered on time

Such a stout and powerful machine on a dumb task

What do you Tug?

F. Stanton Blake is a Broze Star decorated U.S. Army Veteran. He served as a Captain in 1/8 Infantry Battalion, 4th ID during OIF I. F. Stanton has the proud distinction of being the fourth generation in his family to serve in the 4th Infantry Division during combat. He is a published photographer, advanced SCUBA diver, licensed general contractor, ordained minister, entrepreneur, and proud husband and father. His poetry career began during his sisters’ wedding.

The Road Once Traveled

by Joel Seppala

2007
near Atchison, Kansas

I traveled down a familiar road I knew many years ago. With fondness I looked upon barns, trees, and houses I had admired in peaceful drives of quiet days gone by. The air smelled the same; the green grass gleamed the shade of spring it had so many times. The road had not changed. What was different? It was I. Images of yesteryear passed through my memory’s filter. Carefree days of college replaced with the everyday blessings of life. The road that once carried me to school now transported me, my wife, and child, creating new memories on this road I had abandoned while life carried me away. When I returned the road was still there with all the familiar sites. Same road. Same path. What was different? It was I.

Joel Seppala is currently serving on active duty with the Army in Okinawa, Japan. He began writing poetry while stationed in Korea in 2001-2002. He also writes poetry, plays, childrens’ fiction, and is currently working on writing readers’ theatre. His work has been published in Stars and Stripes Okinawa and online at army.mil. He is inspired by the world around him and looks for the extraordinary in seemingly ordinary surroundings.

T.B.I.

by Charity Winters

Blast
Hit
Head
Hurt

Invisible Holes
Anxiety Grows

Perforated Thoughts
Scattered Lost

Whoops
Slipped
Repeat
Forget

Swiss cheese memory
Traumatic Brain Injury

Charity Winters is a 2003 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. During her six years on active duty as an Air Force Security Forces Officer she deployed three times to Iraq, conducting security operations. After separating from the service she earned a Doctor of Physical Therapy degree and currently practices in Clarksville, Tennessee. She is also a graduate student at Austin Peay State University’s English program and a freelance writer.