The Unconscious Soldier

((Photo from ubisam.deviantart.com))

How fascination
   arises in the curt
   rip of the armor, the
   soldier standing in fire
   shifts, but doesn’t miss
the boom…

Here, we don’t move
   anything. We don’t feel
   time, the space between
   the gun and the spark.
   Our minds melt metal,
and are only the spectacle.

What hangs
   in the air is smoke, dirt
   from flaking rust: we’re
   rain dogs 365 days,
   and then some; and
   rain is the only reminder
of home.

Dust, dust,
   and oil cakes the ground,
   clogs the engines of
   America, industrial soot,
   which leaves us fighting.
Are we free?

If only one
   more time Mama would
   hear the bells toll freedom
   we’d be free to come, to
   go. But the bells never ring,
and here in the rain

we pass out
   blood like stickers, a parade
   of bodies on the 4th of July.
   It’s pointless now to look
   beyond the horizon when
24 hours may be a lifetime wasted.