DAY WATCH
At
night, a dust-covered camouflaged helmet rests
atop
a pair of boots at the foot of his bunk
alongside
his weapon and gear,
a
laptop precariously perched on a olive-green
wooden
box at bedside provides a wireless conduit
to
wife, children, parents, friends;
a
means to share mutual love, joy, fear.
He
sits the bunk here after chow each evening
straddle-legged
and hunched over the little machine,
dirty,
bone-weary, yet driven to connect
if
only for a few moments with a saner reality
before
giving himself over to exhaustion and
a
few hours sleep more and more likely these nights
to
feature a replay of the suspense, the numbness,
the
stark terror of yesterday, last week, an unforgettable date
long
since forgotten, a blurring of possible tomorrows,
sometimes
an aching emptiness of no possible tomorrows.
And
then suddenly, coldly, it’s intermission time;
dreams
on hold, daybreak once more.
But
the intrigue continues, no beginning, no end.
The
helmet, boots, weapon and LBE are missing;
the
laptop, the box, the bunk remain.
He’s
out there - fifth day of this operation,
part
of a small group on patrol near Kandahar,
a
mixed Taliban hot spot in southern Afghanistan.
A
close call two (or was it three) days back, but he was lucky -
shattered
rifle stock, scratches from flying M16 plastic.
His
bunkie took one in the thigh the day before
(or
maybe the next day), nearly bled out
before
they staunched the bleeding.
R&R
in Kuwait; he’ll be back.
But
all in all, they’ve been lucky
so
far.
A
few more weeks of mopping up and
on
to another section of the city, or maybe
a
second sweep of the same terrain;
humanity
parts when they move in,
fills
the vacuum when they move on.
The
MacBook sleeps fitfully on its makeshift perch,
awaiting
his return indeterminate hours from now.
An
almost inaudible purr emanates from its sleek shell,
sole
evidence of a tenuous link to the “real” world.
A REPOST FOR MEMORIAL DAY – 2015
an
oldie - farm boy...
darned
old school bus too slow
gravel/dirt
roads, sleet falling, will
get
home less than an hour before
sunset
- end of pheasant hunting season
for
the day
off
the bus, an eighth-mile sprint to farmhouse
change
to chores clothing, throw on old coat, cap, gloves
&
pick up the old Remington Model 11 Auto - 12 gauge
with
handful of shells
teeth
marks on the stock evidence my father & uncle's
use
of the old Model 11 on trapping runs in earlier days
-
stock in the mouth of badger, fox, weasel & others
when
releasing them while running traplines
time
for one half-mile pass up, one half-mile pass back
through
corn-stubbled field north of house & farm buildings
-
crunching through subfreezing terrain - steady snow now - low visibility -
-
puckering cold - bone chilling cold -
one
bird flushes midway on outward pass - a hen gliding low to the field
I
watch - tantalizing, but she's off limits & seemingly knows she's safe -
she
disappears into the dimness of rapidly approaching darkness & the
blowing
snow flurries
on
return sweep, a couple hundred yards from home, a cock bursts from cover
cackling
loudly - I throw a load of number sixes in his path & watch him crumble
& fall
-
dinner -
but
first a 12 year old farm boy's chores time -
milking,
feeding livestock, collecting eggs, odds & ends
-
plenty of odds & ends -
BRAINSTORM...
it's
an invisible vortex - a cyclonic titan within my mind
-
it is my mind - a random myriad of words and thought
bound
by centripetal force to spin furiously within
its
seemingly untethered boundaries
and
yet - at disparate random intervals a centrifugal storm
furiously
flings words and thoughts against the revolving
perimeter
enclosure where some cling limply to the damp
only
to slowly lose their toehold and meaning as their
physical
presence sadly droops through inattention
others,
still less hardy, either congeal on the surface to meld
with
one another and form a morose and senseless blob or,
if
they are brittle, shatter and fall through the eye of the storm
to
form a massive and seemingly infinitely deep verbal pool
the
pressure relief valve spills these at random intervals
-
some in patterns
-
some seemingly random gibberish
which
carries its own cryptic message
© MBORGMAN
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