America (the soldier said) / Eleven Killed Over the Weekend

America

(the soldier said)

I saw something burning on my chest

and I tried to brush it off

with my right hand

but my arm wasn’t there.

Eleven Killed Over the Weekend

You’re from a little town

somewhere near nowhere

Which is somewhere

where there is nothing but

hope and a slight ring

in the distance

A college education say

an adventure, a calling

You sign up

It’s a good shot

Clean clothes

Don’t have to cook

and they point the way

just like in the movies

or on TV

Only on this day

the road is light tan

and endless stones

A string of you

hump along listening

to the crank of trucks, tanks

the cluck and click

of gear and boots

This day explodes

Slices off what is you

Half a head, three and third

feet of large intestine, a splatter

soaked in sludge, oil and blood

This day so far from home

From the Fall 2007 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 24, No. 1)

Loss, Suffering, War

David Plumb’s books include A Slight Change in the Weather, The Music Stopped and Your Monkey’s on Fire, Drugs and All That and Man in a Suitcase: Poems. His work has also appeared in the Washington Post, Miami Herald, Orlando Sentinel, Homeless Not Helpless, Alimentum: The Literature of Food, and the St. Martin’s anthology Mondo James Dean. He studied at the San Francisco Zen Center. A former paramedic, cab driver, cook and tour guide, he teaches at Florida Atlantic University.