Heroes and Villains
For Yassir Hussein

A simple people, a little people
Scrape out their lives in patches of dirt
Carrying pails of dirty water and warm milk
Flocks of sheep and goats lead you
Apathy and pride bind you

But when I look closer
When I sit in the shade of palms
In the coolness of early evening
And listen, really listen, while we talk
I hear something more than words
Something deeper

And in the voice of Hajji
On the wisps of a foreign tongue
I hear the calm steadiness of old wisdom
And the sadness of knowing respect
And no longer receiving it

The Demons Come

Always
But especially at night
Alone in my room
They haunt and torment me
Scampering about
In the shadows and dust
Pulling and tugging
With little hands

Discovering the Truth

No one has ever discovered truth
With discovery comes the image
Of proud-masted ships breaking over horizons
Strong jawed men hacking through dark jungles
Suited pilots bouncing gracefully though space

But truth is found like keys
In the pocket of a fumbling drunk
It comes while the broken-hearted
Cry and sob themselves to sleep

Or sometimes it pierces through us
When we least expect it
Like a board full of rusty nails
On our bare feet

She still signs her letters
Love,

It's been 8 months
Since I last saw her
3 since we talked
Called from Omaha
Maybe Cheyenne ?
2 years now the divorce
Final, fading fast
From a wounded mind
Kids, casualties of life
Ask where mommy is
I still remember
Walking in on you
Tangled in sheets
Both naked, sweaty
Like they kicked the stool
From under my feet
The noose of seeing you
Snapping my neck

Weight

When your children cart off
Buckets full of the future
If in hast they spill some
Don't yell at them too loudly
And if you can, carry
Some of the bags of now
For them as far as you can
And save their little strength
For the burden of the past

The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

They were hunted out
Woodlands chopped down
To make paper, furniture
Anything but your home
All of it stopped, too late
Then no more sightings
Gone like you never were
Just memories and pictures
Then one day forty years later
A sighting in the swamps
Deep in backwoods Arkansas
And the bird watchers cheered

When you called this morning
I had to remember to breath

Burning Bright

Illumination rounds explode
One after another in the night sky
Each one beginning life
With a thunderous boom
Lighting the countryside up
Each one replaced as it fades
Falling toward the horizon
I wonder what I will leave
When my light is spent up
What will be left behind
As I burn toward my horizon

Choices

So many of them jumped
Would rather fall than burn
Not the choices they thought
They'd face that morning
As they rode or drove to work
Worried about slight things
That didn't really matter
After a plane went through
The side of their building

Seeing Angels

On dark stormy nights
When my daughter gets scared
There in her pink princess bed
She prays for angels to come
And watch over her.
On the darkest of nights
When she gets really scared
She hopes in her heart of hearts
That she will get to see them.
Yesterday we were on patrol
Just south of Baghdad
When an IED blew up
Under our humvee, sending
It into the air spinning.
While our driver spilled out
Into pieces across the windshield
I swear for just a moment
I could see angels.

Crippled

I can't pull my hand from this jar
My fist is too big to slide through the mouth
God knows I've yanked and pulled
So I live my life with one hand
The other helplessly crippled
Not by a glass jar that hangs by my side
But by a handful of sweaty pennies

Mortars

They're launching mortars
Tonight, as I write these lines.
Lines that fall like shells
Crashing into the earth,
Houses and lives.
Some of them missing,
Some of them ripping
Through the hearts
Of total strangers

Lightning, but no thunder

Lightning, but no thunder
Interrupts the night sky
As palm trees stare at me
While I scan for insurgents
Who in darkness watch back
Clutching AK-47's and RPG's
While both our children sleep
Restless, hoping for their fathers return

What's left

The Future is not here yet
For that matter it never will be
The past slipped out the back door
And I know your not going to catch him
Which leaves us with just now
And that is all we really have
So hold on to it tightly, friend
Hold on with all you've got