Where do you go
when your war has been won
The enemy vanquished,
the legion’s undone
What do you do
when your purpose is gone
The feelings still burning,
the will to fight strong
Where do you go,
the last battle adjourned
The fields lined in blood,
all caissons returned
As men march in unison,
their rifles unbreeched
A lone bugle calling
—the dead beyond reach
(The New Room: January, 2021)
Barbarous reason rejoices
and draws strength dispensing death.
Its celebration comes with
cold effigies of blood soaked,
ravaged, masked graves of silence,
leaving any subsequent regret
within the heart of the stonecutter.
The suffocating privacy
of each muddy sepulcher
calls out its loss-but who will listen
through the rumble of the caissons roar?
Fear has no time to mourn.
Only after the flame
leaves its postscript
are the cries of the Widow heard-
then wars agony entreats the soul...
that day*
two score and ten
business men in leisure suits,
grandmothers with grey handkerchiefed hair
and adolescents in gaudy glasses,
girls wearing bouffants and sweaters,
the boys maybe ducktails with Pomade
all wrinkling their faces in disbelief -
profound grief that it could be -
As the week ends on the blackest Friday
they watch stoic Jackie stand with Lyndon
as visions of Camelot dance out of their heads
the gritty grim speculation roosts
over a looong black-n-white weekend
of caissons and long drum rolls
and a belief that it'll never
be the same - really, it never was
© Goode Guy 2013-11-16
*1963-11-22
As dusk their line visibly bows
Cropped heads beneath mounds fold
Glum shadows through addle fields row
Listless turrets sprout o'er demarcated woe
Sallowed eyes in bleary sockets rolled
As dusk their line visibly bows
Shocked ears to concussive barrage close
As sighs from clogged lungs are paroled
Raspy shadows through addle fields row
Smoldering smoke in singed heavens glows
Vaporous cloud o'er scout binoculars scrolled
As dusk their line visibly bows
Each rifle into a sterile stack goes
Rumbling caissons to dark corners doled
Steel shadows through addle fields row
The fog of war o'er dazed minds flows
An eerie wind curdles each silent mold
As dusk their line visibly bows
Wispy shadows through addle fields row
My thoughts they roil like waters dark
in the abyss of blackest night,
with memories of mother’s bookmark,
of Longfellow read by lamp light.
She called, in the room around me,
the patter of other small feet.
Her gentle voice fetched angels .
Oh, the rhymes, they astounded me
like lullabies soft and so sweet.
All fearsome shadows, she’d dispel.
Maxine, my queen, read Tennyson
and the Charge of the Light Brigade.
A little girl dreamt of caissons
roll, and thunderous cannonade.
To be so brave, the small child mused,
mother her precious, heroine;
what would it take to stand so strong
without father, and not confused.
What words could be the linchpin
to right mother’s tell-tale wrong.
Such sad inspiration, mother,
oh, how I wronged you by being born,
though I loved you above all others.
Some thoughts of you make me forlorn.
Bring back the tales of mother goose,
three small kittens and their mittens.
Return the vision of your smile
the happiness your warmth induced,
let your spirit comfort, lighten
night, if only for a little while.
Each Twin Tower encased in steel bower
Billowing masts did to horizon crest, as the fibrous
sunflower
Wrought to withstand the shearing winds and the
mightiest shower
A symbol of America's limitless capital and economic
power
Perched on the precipice of greatness until 911's
sentient hour
In a prescient moment, steel caissons did the steel
girders scour
Mighty sentinels of the skyline succumbed to a roaring
stour
In the dust-swept corridors, the shell-shocked
remnants did cower
Anon, as residual to the surface imploded; exploded a
national fervor
As free enterprises' symbols crumbled in New York's
harbor
A wave of national pride rumbling across the fruited
plains did succor
With steeled nerves and stealthy acumen did lab our
Our tarnished symbols of freedom to defend with
unblemished might, valor
In faraway lands, in shielded hovels, bastions; tracked
enemy with vigor
With soaring wings and pounding hooves, girded with
invincible armor
Did fleece the brigand cowards restoring the nation's
honor
We face each other. Each day the distance between us grows shorter
Sweat and fear drips down my face.
Another day surrounded by the stench of spent powder and death
To my left, caissons move the cannon into place
Made ready to do today's bidding, silencing life at random
I count my rifle balls, each designed to kill my brothers
Like me, struggling to survive another day, mired in despair
Why did it come to this, the hate, the destruction, the finality
We are but men. We fight, we bleed, we weep
Freedom the cause, all men created equal. Die so we shall live
I try to swallow my terror. I am not alone. You can smell it
We are not born to war. We are not brave. We are simply driven
I've seen too much. Fingers of death ripping us apart
Fragments of lives left strewn across so many fields
Yet I live. Am I the lucky one, or are they who no longer hear the cannon
A small boy, hollow eyes, old beyond his years, stands with his drum
Every beat calls another soldier to the field. steady, like a dirge
I'm so tired, my body and my mind both broken
Will I see another sunset, or will my war end today
Which brothers will I join come tomorrow. .
11/15/2011
"I shall be telling this with a sigh"
Robert Frost
My thoughts they roil like waters dark
in the abyss of blackest night
with memories of mother’s book marks
of Longfellow read by lamp light.
She called in the room around me
the patter of other small feet,
her gentle voice fetched angels
Oh, rhymes how they astounded me
like lullabies soft and so sweet.
All fearsome shadows, she’d dispel
Maxine, my queen read Tennyson
and the Charge of the Light Brigade
a little girl dreamt of caissons
roll and thunderous cannonades.
To be so brave the small child mused
mother’s small, precious, heroine
what would it take to stand so strong
without father, and not confused
What words where the linchpin
to right mother’s tell tale wrong.
Such sad inspiration*.. mother
but a champion you were born.
You’re adored before all others
yet, tears bring memories forlorn.
So, dreams stream on of Mother Goose
three kittens and their mittens.
My visions of your fleeting smile
return almost every night,
and your spirit comforts, lightens
sights, if only for a little while.