pilgrim

for Stan.

I am mindful of the fact that I've done so very little

for ecology. Oh yeah,

I've loved the obligatory orphaned

turtle.

Fed the sparrows dispersed.

And to this the lines have blurred

from headstone to limb so often,

I cannot have sucked the n*****s of the dark

moons adoration. Not enough.

I do have a map I've drawn from the

dust of Quitman, Georgia,

scabbed over like sheets of grass

and I still can't stand you if

you come to close to my face.

I don't know where your face

has been. In the cold?

At the art institute catching

the butterflies of Cezanne?

Quite often, the firelogs

clogs the senses. The rich,

reds of daylight.

It's the way we live in pain,

sweat, heartache. The Republicans.

Coming back from Canada the

draft dodgers hid their faces, wore heavy coats

in summer

and into the daylight,

forgot the ones who died on jungle

floors or those who were

whisked away in Huey's only to die on jungle

floors full of morphine.

My cousins husband, the one who had

an artery blocked like

the sieges of Tet, died on his

lawn looking at a tender sky.

Came back from war so totally

fucked up, zigzagging across the

neighbors lawns, groping

at the underside of my cousins

belly for the Lebenstraum

of open pastures:

we rarely spoke about love at all. Just

the parts that keeps him up in the trees in 2013,

alive but camouflage and after 43 years

still taking flack. He would show

me the hole in his throat

where he says, all his tarnished

imagination has spilled out.

Reviews

[LJW]

Only you could weave something like the tet offensive into a poem
Flack.....taking flack....wearing it like a jacket, heavy with it. So heavy, now.

[ANTO]

The title Pilgrim reminded me of The Duke - big John wayne Dana
"I've loved the obligatory orphaned
turtle." - very witty - in fact very witty throughout although bittersweet comedic memories I feel.
War does terrible things and the survivors are just waiting to join their buddies in most cases.
Good writing Dana.

[writing mojo]

You always paint the most amazing pictures in connect the dot medium. Only you can connect to such roots from war leafing along the path of kin..excellent piece