ManicDDaily

All Too Many Multiple Tours

Pentagon announces 154 suicides so
far in 2012, a number that “eclipses,”
the Times writes, the
the number of deaths
in combat. I think leadenly
of “eclipse,” black shadow blotting
sun, and then of suicide, suicide as a
combat death–combat with self and all
else too. (Self
losing.)

Making a choice of sorts: but “it’s them
or us” doesn’t seem
to describe it, nor “kill or
be killed.”  Not even, “to be
or not to be.”

If you use something again and
again–take a horse–if you run it and run it and run
it, digging heels into flagging sides, knees into strained-
cord neck–and if it’s a well-trained horse–its eyes
will wilden, froth foam in laval persistence, hide soak, until
heart bursts, what’s broken
folds to ground, and you, who were so profligate with
your steed, we, who were so profligate, will be lucky to escape
with our own whole rider’s legs, our wastrel feet–

But still will not be able to blot out
ebon barrel to close-cropped head, pink
scabbard mouth, delineated
chest–the tunneled metal eclipsing
son/daughter, self, all
else.

Get them home.

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The above is a poem (still really a draft) posted for the dVerse Poets Pub Poetics prompt, “choice,” hosted by the wonderful Brian Miller.   I’m not sure why this topic came to mind.  Pretty sorrowful news.