Bartending The V.F.W.

       Lawrence, Kansas (1995)

There's not much to it:

pour the drafts,

clear the ashtrays,

mix well-drinks.

The Vietnam vets

favor Jack-and-Coke.

The WWII crowd

Scotch-and-Soda.

Our only Korean War vet

takes his brandy neat.

We keep a bottle of St. George

behind the bar for him.

An occasional floor sweep

exceeds expectations.

Christmas décor is tacked up

year 'round.

Campaign insignias

and service ballcaps

line a smoke-filled perimeter

that obscures all 

but the exit signs.

It's Memorial Day.

The Colonel delivers

his annual speech

honoring our fallen brothers.

Manny offers a toast,

"To the lost."

Jason buys another round

of shots.

To remember them,

they drink.

They drink

and beat their chests

in solidarity.

They drink

with the grim awareness

that all stand at the mercy

of the universe.

They drink

to animate themselves

and tell the stories

that otherwise remain buried

in a footlocker,

too heavy

for sober conversation,

too jagged

to hand another vet,

let alone

the civilians outside

eager to thank us

for our service. 

**First published in G.I. Days, an anthology by Milltown Press

Corpses

 

            Outside Kuwait City (1991)

We came upon them mid-day,

in a rush for shelter from the petrol rain: 

        three corpses upright 

        in an armored personnel carrier,

        as crisp as dime-store cigars,

        their boots melted into the floorboard.

Oil fires illuminated a blast zone 

surrounding the vehicle,

casting a perverse half-light

over the living and dead.

Some Marines took pictures with the corpses,

souvenirs for the living back home.

We cracked jokes to steady our nerves.

I kept watch through the scorched steel turret,

frightened less by the dead

than the unseen.

Grandfather came to mind,

lying embalmed in a casket in Enid, Oklahoma.

I was sixteen when he died.

The mortician overdid Grandpa's makeup,

which cracked like desert topsoil 

at the hairline.

I half-expected him to rise up

and scold the adults

for displaying him that way.

Someone passed around the photographs.

The laughter stopped.

Thunder from approaching artillery

rattled our reprieve.

We shouldered our packs

and stepped into the poison rain.

A boot private from Encinitas, California,

glanced back as a helmet

tumbled from the carrier.

"Sucks to be them," he said. 

**First published in As You Were literary magazine

and second-place winner of the 2023 Col. Darren L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards.

**Illustration by Morgane Xenos

PsyOps Theater (Desert Storm)

Dear American Soldier, are you prepared to die for a barrel of oil?
Dear Iraqi Soldier, we are a Multinational Force with overwhelming air superiority.
Would you like to be one of the cripples who are only lamented in the charity ceremonies?
We want you to know the truth! It is the actions of Saddam Hussein which have forced the world to war with Iraq.
You know you cannot win against our fearsome troops and the invincible best friend of Allah.
We have no desire to harm innocent people, but Saddam is leading you to certain death.
Put down your bombs. Demand to go home. You are weary of sand and sun and sweat on your body from senseless aggression.
Resistance is purposeless. The outcome is inevitable. Kuwait will be free from Saddam’s aggression.
You are secretly admiring the great leader, Saddam Hussein, and asking yourself, “Why am I here?”.
Your fellow soldiers along the entire front have either surrendered or were killed by our bombs.
How do you like our Arab lands where you cannot get a Kentucky Fry Big Mac to eat and you are always missing your half-naked, immoral sweetheart back home.
Save yourselves and head toward the Saudi border where you will be welcomed as a brother.
Your American president is losing allies.  He is like the stupid fox that enters into the house of the clever fox.
To seek refuge safely, remove the magazine from your weapon, raise both arms above your head and approach our forces slowly.
Your Arab allies will turn their weapons against U.S. soldiers instead of Iraqis.
If you do this you will not die.
Why be dead for your president’s dumb mistake?

9-11 Diary

Horrific morning.

While I deliberate
between scrambled eggs
and breakfast cereal,

they are leaping from the towers

to elude the flames.

They are burning alive

under the concrete rubble.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Glued to the television for hours.

Tragedy sucks the life 

from daily routine.

Here, no work is done.

A friend arrives for consolation.

"I can't take anymore," she cries,
switching the channel
to Cartoon Network.

We get high 

and watch animated characters

gleefully bludgeon each other,

but only for a moment 

before returning to the day's events.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Rumors of an oil-price spike.

At the station, a line of cars
coils around the block.

Neighbors honk and shriek

at one another.

I wait nearly an hour to fill up.

The man at pump three
lights a cigarette.

The woman at pump four
demands he put it out.

"Lady, haven't you heard?"
the man responds.

"It's the end of the world!"

She looks to me for support.

I say nothing.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Fanatics have seized the day,

religious zealots drunk with vanity 

and self-righteous rage.

One of ours has raises his ugly head.

He's on the radio
blaming abortionists, pagans,
liberals and feminists,
gays and lesbians,
the ACLU.

"I POINT THE FINGER IN THEIR FACE!"
he howls.

"YOU HELPED THIS HAPPEN!"

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

A dinner party assembles.

"I'm inclined to show mercy,"
Philip declares.

"We must respond with dignity,"
says Katherine.

My thoughts journey back 

to the Kuwait desert 

where Marines sift through charred bodies

and shattered, starving Iraqi soldiers

ordered to fight the infidels

or face a bullet to the head.

"Drop a nuke on the bastards,"
James says.

I reach for another bottle of wine.

In Manhattan,

they're still pulling the dead

from the wreckage.

Mission Accomplished

We came.

We conquered.

We blundered.

We recovered.

We declared

victory,

then abandoned
them.

One tyrant fmaily,

half-a-million
men, women,
children
dead
in
Iraq.


You're Welcome

       ~ America