In A Dream

Pig snouted soldiers strut
like heavy cannons,
over dry wild desert weeds

I tumble behind a boulder
maybe twelve or thirteen
I had not met the cycle yet
of Mother Earth and her Moon

The others slept in the madhouse
where echoes of screams
jumped from wall to wall

I tried to burn all of us down
once, melting us into a boiling
ooze where we could flow
together the right way

but she caught me and
I was sentenced to the garden
living off tomato bugs
and raw onion

This was when there was something
now it is this
desolate; sepia spotted trap.

I closed my eyes behind the giant rock
begging the shadow to suck
me into its safe home
It whispered that I was not ready
that my temples were froze

That’s when I heard their cries
mother and brother being
cooked alive
I opened my eyes and
the pig snouted soldier snatched
the dark hole from my face

I am awake.

The Charge

Hard back

pages, stained with time and
an aged aroma.

1915. A battle is painted.
Acid slashing,
spitting.

Direct eyes leap from a tiny cliff
onto young bodies. Bloodied. Abandoned.

Somewhere, some mothers stand as sharp
as shrapnel,
bullets piercing their wombs,
their children’s supple homes.

Trembling hands
find a gun
and
a buddy. A soldier. A boy.
Death has no time in
these fields. He is hurried.

Frontal attacks sweep
unprotected spots. Blurring instinct.
Blinding the Earth with a scarlet bath.

Burying dirt with
young boys,
men.

1915. Hard back pages, stained with
memory and
the scent of suffering.

And this….
just the beginning.

*About The Charge by W. Douglas Newton.

Soldiers

In the beginning,
it was as if barren logs
were thrown together in heaps
for
decomposition

cautious steps
young
benumb

do you hear the bombs?

we are in belligerent land!

The Speaker is right

hazardous air hovers
stagnant
air is vacant

a perilous scent lingers
under
my nostrils
disorienting
direction

South twitches!! To the left!

Barren logs
are not!

They are
amputees!
Victims of explosive surgery,
nerves of Soldiers’ exposed;
an operating table…

God’s acre.

Soft, barren bodies
thrown together in heaps
for decomposition.

A few operative
bodies
are moved,
thrown together in heaps
for bandaging

sent home to their
wives
children
friends

with a perilous scent
still lingering
under their nostrils

disorienting
direction.