Invisible:Not For Contest
He stands beside this long black granite wall
broken lines accentuated reflection recalled names
It is here where he realized
that intranquility of redemption, even of prayer's forgiveness,
he do not own it any more than he owned heaven
there being no clearing of one's debts here upon it's mirrored surface.
It is here in chiseled silence that he recalled
just when and where he met himself for the first time
among the scarred remains of the killing-fields
where young men grew old far too quickly,
far from the banana boats skipping upstream the tributaries of the Mekong Delta.
In a rice bowl, horror steamed crop circles of paddy fields jungles tangled
within mind's greatest intrinsic fear
death.
It lay visible near pothered doors
where once stood life's vessels - unbroken, now carnage without vestige
of honor, standing unhinged, doors singed, crippled with every breath unnerved,
reduced now here unspoken to names
only
this is where murder is not reserved
solely for murderers many were faced without honor
within this stone their internment.
As for others, they returned home
invisible
ravaged each night a memory of unhinged doors their un-sutured wounds
opening without knocking entering without leaving unforgotten
fears of cleaving sanctity undeserved
here
where there is no vetted self-reflection, only sweat and the tremor of dream's
recollected and fractured surfaces of soul stilled distilled dying a
thousand times a night each night each day unceremoniously
hell reduced to living in heavenly reproach.
(April 24 2016)
*Not for contest...but post inspired by.
*Unceremoniously, 366 blue plastic capsules containing the birthdays that would be chosen in the first Vietnam draft lottery were drawn on December 1, 1969. There were NO winners. I was one among them. The war had been going on for several years before. A black granite memorial wall was built in Washington D.C. to the veterans of the VIET NAM WAR with the names of the fallen engraved upon and was completed in 1982. Other than this...most are still invisible.
Copyright © J. Tudor | Year Posted 2016
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