Fragments
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Everyday reports of war seemingly everywhere can impact some of us in ways we'd prefer to avoid. But, however daunting a nights fragmented dreams, their genesis begs respect, prophetic perhaps the message. The infinite jest speaks beyond its pages. “Try to learn to let what is unfair teach you.” David Foster Wallace.
Fragments
They will be...
you do these kinds of things
can't be helped
imagination Band Aids some call them
I know
you just do
fingers wrapped ‘round cold steel
it's then
it's now
differences slight
like playing marbles
tripod-cradled taws and steelies
"Bombers" "Pots"
"shooters" all
aim straight
roll in the hole
you wait a long time
you know there's more to touch
you'll cradle other steel
formidable kind
you know
you hope
you're a kid
you'll do your best
find other holes
aim and shoot
some you dig
some dug for you
explosions know indiscretion
hell...
they say beginnings never end
always renewing
like dawn's edge ever changing
reds oranges yellow
lying on your back
knew those once
before the night never ended
smell the smell now
it's all the same
keeping life going
safe
clean
sterilized
that's what they do
amplified speakers seek help
always there's a page
off the wall
in your battlefront ISP
headgear no different
always the call
always the request
imagination tools
battle tools
you know what's coming
you just do
the swoosh of auto-doors
distant sirens
always there's sirens
always there's arrivals
like now
drinking my coffee
another first day of a new year
every year so familiar
pushing through iron air
waiting to be free
to see a sunrise again
to know a candle still glances
but now
just footsteps
coming at me
a walk I've known
Bethesda recall
remembering when sight
remained at the ready
absorbing fetid squalor
half naked Afghan children
barbarous patience
staring wildly as we passed
elder's eyes theirs
we cradling shooters defenseless
smiling
until
too many buried IEDs
I adjust
steps almost here
sitting seems forever
that's wheeled-life for now
robotic legs in the works
back there
back in Bethesda
coming
coming soon
for now
standard issue dark glasses
covering eyes that once were
footsteps stop
standing now
in front of me
me
Taking my hands
"Lt. Baygen...it's a boy."
"Shall we...your wife is waiting"
my hands grip the steel
following todays fragment
forging yesterday's pieces
a doctor
an imagination beyond
rolling my hands atop the chrome and rubber wheels
my imagination Band Aids
how shiny it all is they tell me
this transport
this evidence
today's somewhere
will he let me cradle him
will he look at me with hatred or compassion
will he know we have made him
what he might become
fragments
longing
Copyright © Odin Roark | Year Posted 2013
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