Tombstones Of Ice

Neurotic Saying

Everybody's neurotic, some are just more neurotic than others.
--Darjeeling

When Mars Goes Retrograde

Standing still at the speed of light
Suddenly seeking perfection,
Moving off in another direction
That seems backward,
Actually, it is just a matter of
Catching up,
Matching up with the other planets
That plod along as usual,
Taking note that the causal
Ramifications of what once was
Is now and never shall be,
Some things change,
Some remain the same,
All is now in a different light,
A red shift in consciousness
Speeding through stellar traffic,
Avoiding cataclysmic confrontations,
Rearranging the configuration of space
For a short period of time,
Dodging the ellipsoidal status quo,
Then pausing for a moment
Before turning around
To do it all over again.

Quail Hunting, January of '72

You’ve been waiting for this for a long time,
The return to the field
With your Remington and your dog,
Nervous on the ride through the country,
Back in Anderson County
Where it’s safe,
Back to where everyone who owns a gun
Goes quail hunting in the new year,
You pass by other groups of hunters
Gathered in restaurants,
Chatting by the roadside,
On out to the furthest reaches of the county
Where the best hunting will be found,
Your father-in-law and brother-in-law eye you cautiously
Looking for any sign,
You laugh at them as you exit the pickup
And grab the shotgun down from the rack,
Reach into your hunting vest and scan the horizon
As you ram the ammunition into the magazine,
Pumping a round into the chamber
You hear the sound of the bolt going home,
“I’ll take point,” you tell them and they know,
You step off the roadside into the triple canopy jungle,
Eyeing everything nervously, sweat running down your face,
Your mind tells you, “Trip wire,” and you tell them to back up
As you clear the area, listening and listening
Hearing only your breathing and your heartbeat
Motioning them ahead cautiously,
“They’re in here,” you whisper just as two hunters
Break from the cover of the brush,
You draw down on them, your mind tells you, “Friendlies”
You wave to them to fall behind you
Pointing to your forehead signaling that you are the point,
They nervously head for their pickup because they know,
A gentle hand touches your shoulder
Telling you it’s time to go home,
But home is so far away
And your tour isn’t over yet.

Post Veterans Day Blues

Nobody to turn to
No one to tell
What do you do
When you come home from the war
To a small town in Kansas
With a four hundred dollar a day habit?
Your closest friend is in Chicago
But you can’t bring yourself to leave the farm,
You can’t even go anywhere at night,
To try to score,
But there’s nothing to score
Until you run into another one of you
Who has thirty tabs of Sandoz,
Not my bag, you say
But you wonder
It might help you kick
But you don’t know,
Your family, your friends
The whole town is so naïve
They can’t even be angry
Or show any pity
For something they don’t understand,
So you deal with the pain and the mental breakdown,
You deal with the town and your friends
Copping some dew to hold you over
Until the next war comes around.

War Story - Veterans Day 2007

Brother Davey wanted a souvenir
To send back home to Oxnard,
A Snoopy air cargo plane flew in circles overhead
Dropping flares that lit us up,
We watched them drop
Suspended in the air on a three foot parachute,
When they burned out
The parachute dropped gently to the ground,
Brother Davey wanted one real bad,
He broke the perimeter line
Just as Snoopy dropped another miniature sun,
Lighting him up as he ran
Faster and faster
Past the souvenir
Turning back toward us as we watched
Puffs of dust track his path
Coming closer to the look of fear on his face,
He fell twenty feet from the bunker
As the flare burned out and the night went dark again
In a place called Kontum.