Monday, February 11, 2019

Pawns Like Me Limp Lost

Pawns Like Me Limp Lost
© Surazeus
2019 02 11

Scintillating sand of somewhere else swirls
white as willowy whispers I still hear
long after shooting in the city stopped
as silence slouches over my stunned heart.

Whoever won the power game of this war
and reigns as king on chessboard of the land,
pawns like me limp lost in gray smoke of greed
still searching mute for our paradise lost.

I want to sit in wood boat on the river,
holding fishing pole as I catch quick fish
while sunlight flickers on the cool green stream
then eat apples and cheese on soft grass shore.

I think about my childhood on the river
while slouching in the large troop transport truck,
clutching the rifle I used to kill people,
and stare at the river bright among trees.

I want to jump free from the lurching truck
and run into the woods where old trees sing
to sit again in wood boat on the river
but they would shoot me with the firing squad.

Three planes dive out of the clouds like swift hawks
so I shout as they strafe bullets at us
and kill the driver of our truck which leaps
bouncing in the field to crash on its side.

Tumbling into thick bushes where I hang
suspended between infinity and death,
I become the Glow Cloud in empty sky
and think about Kathy in my hometown.

Her round freckled cheeks and silver blue eyes
gaze down at me through shimmering gold hair
so I roll over and fall to the Earth,
then walk with my platoon along dirt road.

We walk three days along the winding river,
following silver shimmer of its truth
till trucks arrive to take us to the city
where I stand still amid dispersing crowds.

Now that the war is over and we lost,
we drop our rifles in heaps by the gate,
then I walk somewhere in vast city streets
past a million strangers who have no names.

Arriving at the house where Kathy lives,
I call her name so she steps out the door,
and stares at me while holding her young child,
then cries she got married since I was dead.

I walk down to the river that flows bright
between buildings destroyed by whistling bombs
and sit on the rock where Death waits for me,
then hum while I fish in shimmering light.

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