Not home
heart broken
drank too much after Phil or 30 others
up late studying for finals
Hung over from keg beer
no sleep
dead or wounded
Bad grades
DEAD
drink
DRINK MORE
scholastic acheivement
TACTICAL IMPOTENCE
honor society
BRONZE STAR
tepid, overly sweetened KOOL-AID
packets of old, acrid tasting instant coffee
SHOWERS every two weeks ,
sometimes three
foot checks
big bugs, lizards, rats
wet boots, wet socks,
Never alone, but always alone.
You get used to it.
Klute,
Middle May, 1988
Waking me from a winter unconsciousness,
I get the first clear day of light
and birds being noisy in February.
I go running on this perfect day, a gift.
Then the usual stuff occurs.
My neck gets stiff and sore and sweaty.
Remembering too much.
My Chucks turn into mud-caked leather and canvas
boots
with toes cracked
bloody and stinking.
Oidiform gauze jogged my memory
in some biography I was reading last night.
Kids walking through streams,
with rifles instead of fly rods
and worrying about Bouncing Betties
instead of small mouth bass,
and one needs a dust-off
instead of a date,
because he’s missing his leg
instead of his prom
Date.
Tension that’s so painful
that it just won’t go away.
Klute
After a time of living many times and
trying to be big and brave,
in so many places and inflicting so many wounds
and treating a few.
She told me I was one of the littles
They told me to be big when I was
actually little, they said, "don’t cry,
act your age, you’re a big boy!"
Then they stuck me with a war unwinable
And I found other littles trying to be big
Then we came back looking very big and feeling
very little
and were put under a microscope.
And years went by and we were classified and
labeled and filed away
to work and raise families
And anesthetize.
Klute