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Mingling with the Dead |
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I mingled with war's dead in fields of combat today
Fallen dumb with pain in contentious battle's fray
Visiting but for a moment, numbered among the dead
Tethered on a silver thread that back to "the world" led.
I see still through eyes, still vacant,
Riding on clouds above, caricatures of men by neighbors sent
Pale pall lays stark upon countenances that anguish cannot
hide
From dissolute war's hatreds that leave mouths gaping open
wide.
Men around me laid crumpled, rumpled, distraught afore
Piled haphazardly one on another, red-stained fruits of war
Warriors' vibrant mortality this war's robbing
By the grim reaper beaten, no longer with life throbbing.
Soldiers changed by war to lifeless mannequins now
Torn pitiably, before that great abyss bow
Broken bodies frozen so still where they lay
Leaking souls, no more on tortured earth to stay.
Creation's ripped from life by cruel death's somber
rejection
Products of war's craft lie dead in final agitation
Gaping, screaming mouths, abject terror displayed
Tossed in fetal positions where devastating war laid
arrayed.
The dead no longer hear life-giving reveille to them calling
Nevermore to answer its chilling cadence down spines
shrilling
In demise fading, passing obscure in thin cold mist
Beclouded by mortal agony in frozen pain kissed.
Primal screams shriek a final death knell toll,
Over dying men no longer na�ve nor gung-ho,
No honor but death coming to these veterans beatified
Nevermore smiles painted by death petrified.
Then I awoke! Arisen, I shake off death's hoary beast
From that most cruel captor, once again released
Again escaped in memory... though I feel intimately its cost
Will I be so lucky tomorrow... or join the brotherhood lost? |
By
Gary Jacobson
Copyright 2004
Listed
December 29, 2010 |
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About
Author...
In 1966-67, Gary Jacobson served with B Co
2nd/7th 1st Air Cavalry in Vietnam as a combat infantryman and is the recipient of the Purple
Heart.
Gary, who resides in Idaho writes stories he
hopes are never forgotten, perhaps compelled by
a Vietnamese legend that says, "All poets are
full of silver threads that rise inside them as
the moon grows large." So Gary says he
writes because "It is that these silver
threads are words poking at me � I must let them
out. I must! I write for my brothers who cannot
bear to talk of what they've seen and to educate
those who haven't the foggiest idea about the
effect that the horrors of war have on
boys-next-door."
Visit Gary Jacobson's site for more information
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