Saturday, March 11, 2017

GUEST BLOG...POETRY! "Walking Out Of Water" by Dennis Patrick Slattery

























WALKING OUT OF WATER

What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end. - Tim O'Brien



Shed the skin of war Cacciato believed

up in the high country out of

Viet Nam

“If war won’t leave me,

then I’ll. . . .

Shed the bayonet, ammo pouch

dreams that terrified—the whole

backpack of misery up, up

the slippery clay trail, skin

peeled off by a dull knife.


The jaundiced world of woe

tilting the crucifixion resting

on a lower lip,

the stunted prayers of a

pocket-sized New Testament.


Cacciato hurling toward high ground

lightening his load when he

paused to oversee torments of

jungle shivers, futures napalmed

into despair and death shattered

by one malignant bullet.

Up and over the crazed haze

over dazed days when new souls 


once grazed in pastures of plenty.

©2017 Walking Out Of Water Dennis Patrick Slattery
http://www.dennispslattery.com/ copyright 2017 All Rights Reserved