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
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