Warrior Poetry: Atmospherics

 

By Anonymous RU Fan

Bad news spreads through old platoons

Like echoes bouncing off 50-mile canyons

Heron’s cries across broad lagoons.

 

Some men live long, unhappy lives

And fade from the memories of everyone.

Others live the short, sweet sorrow

Of passing with young faces fresh

In the closed eyes of their brothers.

 

They take their last breath full of foreign dust

And live on as those hyperbolic paragons of courage

All sinewy fortitude and good spirits,

Frail humanity hidden except in broken bodies.

 

All this as a sliver of a generation struggles to part ways

At once puzzled and dourly resigned as their friend is

Cloaked under star-spangled cloth

And dangerless gunfire.

 

Seven crisp reports,

Three times,

As the warfighters flinch, barely, knowingly

And the startled civilians feebly battle to comprehend

What would drive the young and talented

To this dirt-covered end.

 

Of course, they never will.

Comments

comments

4 Comments

1. 

   Torin Rowe

   November 1, 2013 at 9:46 pm

   One of the most honest and accurate works I have read, as of late. As a combat veteran and amateur poet I must say this speaks volumes. The perceptional distance between those who chose our path with those who simply observe the consequences may never be closed indeed.
2. 

   Murphy

   November 2, 2013 at 2:02 am

   Don’t know why that hit hard.
3. 

   Jessie F

   November 2, 2013 at 4:45 am

   Incredible.
4. 

   mark

   November 13, 2013 at 12:45 am

   This is so on point I feel compelled to say some thing but find my self lacking of any words of measure.

   The long war is almost over and with it the bad news from old platoons. Thank you and we’ll done