Twin Tower Response

By David Pointer

She shows pictures of an Iraqi billboard
Saddam Hussein riding in a fiery chariot,

her late brother emailed all these pictures
before his humvee floorboard exploded

grief entombs us like a shared grave as I
pass back the increasingly heavier photos,

pungent burning metal melting our way,
faltering, we pokerface for any new façade

Invisible Jewl

It was time to tuck in all
rear echelon office pogues,
Bill Jewl had his sniper
graduation tale to share,
Carlos Hathcock had come
to bless all bullets built
for cerebral hemispheres
or those trained to trigger
on urban enemy snipers
annihilating intel or
stupidity or other life
forms in between

David Scott Pointer is the son of a piano playing bank robber who died when David was 3 years old. David later served in the Marine military police. In 2010, his poetry collection “Warhammer Piano Bar” had three poems nominated for The Pushcart Prize.

Rear Support

By Suzanne Rancourt

The Reticent Veil

This is really true.
I never had the grief wiped away
with White Eagle feathers or songs sung
or special foods prepared.

It is true that I dreamt you were sick and dying
and I awoke saying, “This can’t be true.”
But when our Bear Clan brother came and said it was so
the grief appliquéd itself to my heart
as varicose webbing and loss
which I added to all the many losses
that came and went before you
and they all came back at Ceremony Read more

No Longer With Us

By Tyler VerGowe

I’ll never forget, the very first day.
You were the first person I met, inside our company bay.
We talked and we laughed, and became best friends.
I knew it would last, until the end.
I had your back, and you had mine.
Nothing could change that, not even time.
We got deployed, and sent to war.
We shot and killed, and kicked in some doors. Read more

Boundless Grief

By David Anderson

Inspired by the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American history. It is estimated that families of half the dead never learned of their fate. Antietam changed how armies accounted for war casualties. The Tomb of the Unknowns is a tribute to those whose fate was lost forever to combat. At Antietam the pain created was unmeasurable, it rippled across the nation in ways that can never be known.

It was the final day I heard from you my love, my best friend
Now time has stopped for me for want of any news, good or bad
The seasons change but my boundless grief has not, my pain unmeasurable
If I could know your fate would I finally find some peace
It is the unknowing that tests my sanity, my memory of you unchanged Read more

Tattoos

By Jacqueline Genovese

Tattoos line the perimeter
Of arms, shoulders, legs, chest
Defying bullets, bombs, blasts, wrecks
Painful, permeable armor
Can’t heal nor keep hidden
War’s brutal bequest Read more

The Veteran’s Wife

by Mariecor Agravante

I.

When I was a middle school girl
I read books on battles of the world.
I perused Alexander the Great,
And Leonidas at the Hot Gates.
Marathon, Salamis, Carrhae, too;
Adrianople I had in view.
Pharsalus was pivotal, I’ve heard;
Actium sparked tactics navies observe.
And during the Medieval Age
The Battle of Tours was a vital gauge.
I learned of Hastings, even Bannockburn,
Crecy and Battle of Tannenberg.
Watling Street gave us famed Boudicaa,
Who’s studied in war curricula. Read more