Cold Nights and the Desert
Tis the soul that is lost in the pillars of sand
Tis the ready acumen of dismantling life,
where we begin the triage of the human soul.
What fragments eradicate themselves with knives?
What ruminations do we piecemeal into wholes?
In dusted dreams, the limpid sun attends the bar,
then the fog collapses the dunes, commencing night.
Across the barren swathe comes a squall of tar
Patrolmen on their midnight watch, in steps finite
The perpetual whip on the old fan above,
Its manacles ringing against an oft used orb,
The mind rapt with resonant clangors of doves
at mercy with a psyche that plots and implores—
The shadows play victim to the clamors of light
in echoes the antipodal thoughts interweave.
Redolent doldrums cleave the spirit with might
What makes you shatterproof is you have to believe
Power out there in the trenches is its own purpose
To share its imperfect cunning is to dilute it
As fear whispers within the skull, without purchase,
the unknown assumes the catalyst to impute it.
The darkness impends, like a minefield full of sand,
The twilight above imposes with fallen prayers
The children with AKs, their forebears unmanned
And tarnished nihilism still holds crown and chair.
The adversary in nebulous ambition
Appears on the intangible coals of vengeance
the bandwidth, inside the morsels of cognition
endeavors unlocking the most baleful menace.
As death was the escort perusing the dark
‘til nigh it spotted another, standing there in wait.
With solemn caprice, it took them apart,
and ebbed into quietness, fulfilling its fate.
We modeled sustenance, like it was a building block
each in consequence to our waning conditions.
And where light blinds, in darkness, clarity mocks,
Impinged only by the curse of indecision
Like a flickering bulb that blames the filament
Each fibril of its being not holding the weight
The night times lonely, the eyes flung precipitants
as though such tears could keep the company of late.
Cast downward in shadows and dignities shed
Exiled from mortal coils and freedoms therein
There are dark places in this world where few will tread
And in those dark places they will find me again
Through metal raindrops the bodies fell all around,
You could hear the screams all the way down to the floor
As the fog engulfs them, and silence filled the sound,
They fell down, until the idea of them is no more.
Tis the soul that is lost in the pillars of sand
madly yearning to be alive and empowered.
But as a wolf hungers to conquer the land,
I hunger to live, or lest be devoured
In seizing the day, you will have the day as planned
But with the right day you will seize entire lifetimes
And don’t let that moment convert back into sand
Or you will be left with nigh but your moral crimes.
The sparseness of waking to nothing is deafening
The desolation is this fractured existence.
What little time I have left will be spent living
as a beast in the silhouettes, in the distance.
- A Moment Away - June 21, 2023
- Wall Fly Reporting - June 21, 2023
- Promises Kept - June 8, 2023
Wow! This is a very expressive, powerful verse, Paul. It has a deep, dark meaning that I felt to the core. Two of my brothers and a very close friend suffer from PTSD and it is so difficult to live with. It takes a LOT of understanding and love from family and friends to stand with and bear with the bad times. Excellent rendering of the affect of war on the soul. Well done, dear poet.
Thank you so much Phyllis. Just from speaking to friends and family members who have been in the middle east, war changes you. Then you get some crazy sickness like ptsd and its a whole different nightmare. In some cases the soldier would rather be in battle than home, some are built that way, need the adrenaline rush, need the smell of war surrounding them. Thank you so much for your review.
An expertly rendered piece of verse, Paul. The effects of war on both body and soul can not be taken for granted. For many veterans the war doesn’t end on their return home. Well done.
No it doesnt John. Some even come home and would rather be out on the battlefield. They cant fit into normal society. I feel so bad for those who suffer from the pains of war. Thank you so much for your kind words.
A very powerful and emotive verse, so well penned and phrased creating stark imagery and the very fear of desert war. Excellent work Paul. Kudos.
Thank you so much for your kind words Tony. I still dont think i did the battlefield justice, no way to be in their shoes. Its so sad that many of them post war, cant function in a normal society.
Fascinating, totally involved write, using language of which I am not familiar. However, the pursuance of a single thought, triangulated with spectacles so brilliantly described, brought me a spectacular piece of your mind. Excellent, and very enjoyable, my dear friend!
Thank you dear friend. It is such a sad subject, the pangs of war. How it wears on the troubled soul, how it breaks down the weary mind. Its awful that so many soldiers come back with mental disorders and cant function in normal society. Thank you so much again dear friend.
Time and profit as may be, you lax behind in your most appreciated philosophical reproach!
What an epic piece – as a former soldier I give it a rousing thumbs up for descriptiveness – metal raindrops…such powerful terminology…wow
Thank you so much Ralph, 1 for your service, and 2 for your kind words. I am glad you enjoyed this piece. I have family in the military, so while this piece is of a fictional fashion, I’ve heard too many war stories from my father and my uncles, so I semi-understand the trials of war. Thank you so much again. ~Paul
Awesome piece with such powerful terminology
Thank you so much Kurt. Im glad you enjoyed this.