I remember the days before

I remember the days before pouring through the breach from Saudi Arabia into Iraq.
Months sitting idle standing guard, repairing equipment, training over the same lessons.

The season changed but the looming doubt and fear never did. Each day built upon itself like the ever growing dunes that piled up at the tent flaps.

On occasion some other units would become fully activated and ready. The dynamics of our purpose would change. Tents would be pulled down, moved a few hundred miles, then once again assembled. Each time the burm would not be built up so high or as wide. Each trench dug a little shallower and shorter.

We knew. Soon those protections against the world would only be a hindrance in the final day before the breach.

Live or die, most were ready for what outcome there was to be.
You see, those enlightened few had already experienced death, that blissful adrenaline rush over the edge of reality, and now only moved by muscle memory. We knew what we were to do.

Kill and die, live or die, stand up, move again, rinse, repeat. Everyday was the same day. The only difference was the sand and dirt that piled up at the door.

Soon it will be time for those that don’t know to shake back your own tent flaps. Step out into the reality of an endless day, and fight a war you did not prepare for. Those people will believe in Hell that day…

And us devils who know will be there to show you the way.

On scraps of paper

That guy holding the gun
That guy isn’t me
That guy sitting alone
Slouching over in the back corner booth
No that guy isn’t me
Licking his lips

Remember the taste
Blackpowder and gun oil
Life going around
Tracing circles at the end of the trap line
Start to finish

Insurrection

War wounds open up again. Flag draped coffins carried out as gently as a baker’s dozen for display.
Strong shoulders bend beneath the reality of their death.
Impudent, impotent old crow in a hurry to pick clean the bones of other kills ruffles his feathers and stares at the sun checking the time.
I would hurl a stone at his head in the hope to do harm but the gore crow smells a meal and wouldn’t let go no matter.
People seem to take pride of their choice. They praise the theft of life as the murder flocks to the feast.
I say string each croaking feather from tall white pillars and let wind and gravity bear witness to the crime.

Ceaseless

There isn’t time to say hello
Nor will there be for long goodbyes
Even now cobwebs creeping threaten weary eyes
The tide ceaseless carves away
Each wave claiming more of the day
Leaving only to return in the night
Man that is good was often just as evil
So choose your way and be just and nimble
For we all await the somber gavel
And He that bears witness on judgement day

Sadly, I Lament

In the shadows lay a daemon
Lurking quiet beneath the trees
Stalking silent amongst the leaves
Until opportunity came to be
Then the devil stole from me
Stole in a whisper a love so dear
Left of her no trace to see
None would ever hold again
The soft shape and elegant line
Of her beauty so devine
Lost to the living
For all time
Except in memory
Shared in rhyme

In the Shadows

The cold winter night
A cloudless star filled sky
Only naked branches on the trees
No wind to rub limbs into a screeching creak or rustle dried leaves under foot
The coyote bark and howl from one hidden den
Over the hill another begins their baying
A chorus takes up position
Navigating the dry rills, bramble filled trenches, and deer worn paths
I can feel them closing the distance
Each twisted trunk
Every darkened hole
The night comes to life with slender shadows
Backlit by the northern constellations
Crescent moon trailed close by Venus
The haunting calls of a predator coming closer in the night
But they know to tread softly across my path
I too have a yearning hunger that calls, and a inner desire to be unleashed

Sound

Reverberation
A high pitch mixing at the upper spectrum of a ringing chime
Sharp tones of metal on metal cutting away through bone and brain
Screams of pain changing over into images of lightening bolts and razor thin daggers
My eyes turn to liquidized jelly
They melt under the constant agony of pulses spuming forth from now empty sockets
The only escape is being walled into a casket six feet down insulated by the solid earth
Until the volume of gnashing and gnawing grows
Louder than before a chorus of beetles and worm devour flesh
In this one last sanctuary of hell the spirit unable to find release from the torment succumbs

At the Beginning of Each New Day

Along the waters edge where sand and ocean meet
The worlds first words are spoken
By the soft and whispering breeze

It speaks of the many kingdoms
and of ageless palaces carved of stone
All the chambers filled with musical laughter far below in the surging sea
The echoing ripples flowing
Splashing playfully upon the distant shores above

Alas the people of the land no longer remember the beauty
Nor can they walk the halls
Time since it has passed deep beneath a sea foam gray

Softly the wind summons back the memory
As the crabs solemnly standing guard lament
And flying high overhead seabirds call out a sullen praise

There at the waters edge where sand and ocean meet

Dreams of the Liche

I have been here before in life… a forgotten martyr of a desperate time. Now I lay concealed beneath these layers of dead skin, mummified cartilage and muscle.
The life giving waters have long ago fled back to the sea.
Left alone my corpse’s slow decay releases back my last breaths of air. Returning what little good it once kept trapped within.
Somewhere solemn words stand forgotten carved deep in weathered stone. “The Last”.
Birth shown without beginning. Death left unchiseled. Such a precious thing as life left blank.
Was it for convenience or from lack of concern.
The curious may one day find this bolt hole where I sit enthroned. Disturbing my promised eternities, foolishly attempting to pry from dead lips secrets of forgotten times.

Agelessly, lidless eyes watch for the coming day. Stiff bones growing impatient of the wait.
Silently I listen to the world just beyond wooden walls and marble stone. Remembered sounds echoing out inside the powdered dust that once was brain.
The constant intrusion of spider and moth from clay stained crevices. Pillows and tapestry they weave for me. Adorning my once vibrant pastels in a virgin bower of silken whites.
Dressed in such royalty all my court gather near.
The maddening chirp of the camel crickets add to the music of my ballroom. Beneath the chandeliers of glowworms the seething hoard claw away the grime leaving traced lines as forgotten mosaics.

Still I wait for you my love. Promises made in youth still bind. In death they hold more honest truth. In sickness an in health, for richer and for poor, let none separate what here has been joined, even upon death one should depart. In unity, what once was two, now man and woman be made whole.