The New York city lights-the night---Chapter five

Another chapter.

                                   The New York city lights-the night

I held Dorthy tightly. My face in her hair,  her hair smelled of the Spring flowers.  I felt her sadness as she grasp my hands tightly near her stomach. She was hiding pain and tried to be strong for herself and her brother. I knew her sadness. I buried two brothers who committed suicide and I joined a war to find the good death. I learn when wrapping the Iraq soldiers in body bags after Death Valley. Every second of life is worthwhile. These frozen bodies would celebrate another day of life with family and friends. Dorthy was in peaceful sleep and I arose from the bed and I went to the living room and wrote some poetry.

-----
Men do shameful things.


No excuse for torture in war or peace.


The horrid of war should leave us weak.


Sacrifice of people and cities is acceptable?


Are we shackles and blinded?


We have Iranians, Iraq and Koreans people living in the USA.


Just men and woman trying to exist in the craziness.


Now internal problem in the world.


In Iran killing men and woman demonstrating.


Being killed for their view and wanting change.


No sanity anywhere.


We live in a world.


Where human shields are necessary in Palestine.


Africa need aid of food and medicine.


Interference and humanitarian are necessary.


Need to quit selling guns to rabid leaders.


Time to cry out.
Enough of the useless bloodshed.
Gather the leaders of this world.
Create a plan and do it.


Soldiers are killing for leaders.
Who are
Impotent and hostile toward peace.
Inflamed with hate.
Blinded with self goals.


What can we do?


Doing nothing is not the answer.
Being entrenched and malinger in a cave.


We may wake up one morning.
Your child will ask you.



What happen?


Call your Congressman and Senator.
E-mail the president.
Create friendship with other people in other countries.


What men do?


For deceitful and cold-hearten men.
Must stop.


Just and human leaders are needed.

Humble and sensible men are needed.

Pray for peace.

Pray for freedom.

Pray our children can have a fair chance.



Pray the Wars and hate can fade away to children
scary stories.

-----
The w***e bath
 
 Large shining teeth.
Telling me the way to heaven.
 
 I will find my way to paradise by the gift to his christian cause.
 His teeth seem to shine brighter.
 
His mumbling of a thousand words.
Leave me feeling dirty. 
 
I get a damp cloth and wipe away the words of a greedy man.
 
 
 The captain tells me.
" I own you. "
 
"You do what I say.
Even  to death. 
I'm in-charge."
 
 I try to wander away.
 But he keeps speaking. 
 
I feel dirty and go to the latrine.
I get a damp cloth.
 
Another w***e bath in a life where the words are eating away at my soul.
 
 I sit in a classroom.
 The instructor asked me?
 
If I was ordered to kill.
Would I? 
 
I tell him I would kill him first.
But my words become weaker with each second the instructor speaks.
 
 He shower me with his blood song and I began to understand. 
 
The sweat pours down my face and I go to the bathroom. 
 
One more w***e bath for a man drowning in useless words.
Forced to accept for a few pennies.
 
Beliefs only a mercenary could believe.
 
  Maybe if I was a high paid w***e.
 
 I could live with the things I must do.
 
 But nothing as bad as a cheap w***e.
 
----
Shadows
 
My sister told me. "You  have changed. "
She told me. "You saw too much s**t and your mind and eyes are cold.."
 
I told her,.
"War isn't personal.
You do what you are told. Try to forget and move on"
 
 I kissed her forehead. 
I told her. "War was easy. 
This world falling apart around me. 
I don't know what to do.?
That the crazy s**t I don't understand."
 
Up in the morning before five. 
We don't need no sunshine.
 Organization, discipline, three  square meals a day.
 Old SGT. say. "It will be all OK."
 
Young boss at work asked me too many questions.
 I told  him it is not for him to understand.
 
When you stand tall at attention. Salute a M-16, boots and helmet of a dead soldier. 
You join a club.
The soldiers that lived must carry on with their buddies stories and memories.
Drink a beer on the day of their friends death. Can't allow them to be forgotten.
.
 
Lying on cold ground.
 Waiting for a hidden enemies.
 You slapped your magazine to insure it is loaded right.
 You light up a cigarette and hope all things will be alright.
 
Going to Iraq with my gun. 
Going to kill some Iraqi sons.
 
 Generals sent Division of soldiers. 
Names don't matter. 
Reaching for more stars.
 
Mama and Papa sit by the phones. 
Wife and family pray for the day their soldier come home safe and sound.
 
Soldiers talk about kids and woman. 
Takes up most of our time. 
 
No-one talks of dying.
 Ain't no race or religion.
 Protect your friend back and he watched your back.
 
Soldier do right and wrong things. 
A lucky man can walk away from  all the s**t and forget. 
 
The shadow of war find you one day.
 
 I stood with  a mother of my friend killed in Iraq.
  She  held me up.
 I saluted her son's gravestone.
 
I go to the corner bar with other Veterans. 
Drink to friends not here and missed.

Maybe baby sister is right.
The shadows are always with me.
----

  Mercy

Young black man.
22 year old.
He sat alone and ate alone in the mess hall for many days.
I watched him and wondered why?

I knew great pain and understood his face and eyes.

I started to sit with him.
He said nothing for many meals.
Other Soldiers said he was crazy.

One morning at breakfast.
He looked at my eyes direct.
He told me.
"Some of the poor men were still alive at Death valley. They were still breathing.
Pieces of bodies speaking in a foreign language. I held so many of them. All I could do is listen."

His eyes filled with tears. He asked me.
"Was there any purpose for this war?"

I looked at his sad eyes. I told him.
"You did all you could. Mercy of someone hearing your last words allow the poor men to move to the next place with the vision a kind heart. Not the bloody s**t of war."

He got very quiet for a time. He whispered.
"All I see is death and blood in my dreams. I can't see any good in my life now. What can I do?'"

 I took him to Virginia beach. Not many people in the late months of winter.
I made him drink many long Island ice teas. 
We drank till we could barely see anymore.

We wandered down to the Virginia shoreline.
He watched the Atlantic dance on the shore.

He turned to me. Asked me? "What the f**k are you trying to do to me?
Why don't you leave me alone?

I passed the whiskey to him.
I told him. "We have been lied to. No-body care if people live or die. We were just mercenaries for money and oil. Let's scream to the Gods. Lets scream into the wind. Tell the world to f-off. Then maybe we can find the mercy to forgive ourselves."

He gave me a big smile. Told me. "You are damn crazy."

He stood up and started to run down the ghostly night beach.
Screaming and crying.
He ran into the sea.
Yelling 'kill me, end my bloody life."

I swear I saw someone with him.
I tossed my wallet to the sand. 
I went into the cold sea to get him.
He was waiting for me.

I wrapped my arms around him.
He smiles and told me. "I'm Okay.
I know I must forgive myself. 

He turned and looked me in the eyes.
He whispered. "Thank you for the mercy of your friendship. No-one came when I was alone and afraid. I prayed for forgiveness. You forced me to face my life."

He looked at the morning sun rising from the east. Told me. "I'm done with the Army. I won't touch a gun or hurt another person."

A month later at the Greyhound bus station he was going home. I went to shake his hand. He grabbed me and gave me a bear hug. Kissed my forehead. He told me.
"Mama will heal me with her love. Baby sister will insure I'm alright. And I remember your face and what you gave me.  You gave mercy to a man in need."                    
-----------------------------------------------------
I finished writing the last poem and I looked up and Dorthy was watching me. Standing near and quiet. She took my journal and read the words. She fell into my lap and begin to cry. I cried with her. She told me. "I'm scare to see my brother. He told me to leave him alone the last time I saw him. I hope he will see me? I whispered. Dear Dorthy. Your brother need you. You must fight for love. We will love and die for the need of love, my love. People who had swim in s**t need kindness and words of concern. Loneliness is the true killer. I'm thankful for you Dorthy. You have helped me and I will try to help you. She kissed me and she rose-up and took my hands. We wandered back to her warm bed.

At breakfast. Dorthy told me. "Today I have great plans for us. We are going to the Nuyorican Poet cafe and we will dance at the Copacabana. In the daylight. We will roam the Central park and find you taverns. Drink Irish beer and whiskey. Today I want to laugh and dance. Tomorrow very early. We will take the train to Albany. I feel it will be okay my Johnnie. As long as you are with me." I kissed her many times. I kissed her neck and cupped her breasts. I whispered. Your wish is my command.
         John Castellenas/Coyote

Author's Note

A new chapter

Reviews

[barleygirl]

Your descriptions of war & the aftermath are the most raw, gut-level confessions I've seen. You bring a rare sensitivity to the telling of these stories, rather than drama or anger, as these things are typically told. If only those who decide on war could be this sensitive to everything involved, they would never make the decision to send our young ones to be maimed & die or die inside. Thank you for telling a million stories in your poems of war.

[Coyote Poetry]

Thank you my friend. I appreciate the kind words.

[Solar]

War and its casualties - how littered is literature with requiems and regrets, a reveille that goes unheard - perhaps no ultimate solution, other than to remain humane in the inhuman condition, for poets and writers to keep the flag of the human spirit flying, just as you have done.

[Coyote Poetry]

Thank you Solar for reading. I will finish the story tonight. Was hard to write. I had to go back 24 years and gather memories.

[Solar]

Thank you for sharing memories that must have been painful to say the least - very brave of you to go back into those shadowlands. I look forward to reading the conclusion.

[gentlekindness]

The poem "w***e bath" I have read before and feel the same each time. There are no words to say to you, to express my feelings about what you went through.

I would just sit quietly next to you and express my feelings with silence and company of touching hands. Some things cannot be fully expressed with words but with just sitting with someone.

Much love,
Annie💕🌷

[Coyote Poetry]

Thank you Annie. Long life had taught me. We can't be led by hate and anger.

[gentlekindness]

Yes that is true. Hate and anger are not emotions I am very in touch with. I know that war begins with greed , fear and hate. It is sad because so many people suffer from the greed and hate of other people, when war begins.
Your stories are sad, but they show truths about humanity that have to be told...less we forget. When people forget history, they are doomed to repeat it.
When people say they want war, they are thinking about what they will gain. They forget about the loss. And so it repeats again and again.
I am sorry for you getting caught in the middle of it.
Much love,
Annie💕

[Nigel Newman]

Not sure I can say much by way of constructive observation. This is massive. It's raw. It's filled with so many images and re-takes on the madness of war and also love for fellow man. I can only imagine how drained you must have felt after this tour de force. I like the way you return to Dorthy. It may or may not interest you, but as I was reading this, it was almost like you'd pasted walls of a room with post-it comments and thoughts, perhaps one wall for each poem but with post-its being lifted and moved or copied between walls; and then eventually returning to the corner where you started.

[Coyote Poetry]

I appreciate you Nigel. Your opinion is needed. Thank you for reading. Today I will write two more chapters.

[alifeacoustic]

I really enjoyed how you included the poetry as part of the story and how right your words are that we are fighting against our enemies that are our own neighbours and causing so much destruction to the world as a whole, and within a more personal perspective, that same devastation in concentrated form as the ones ripped apart by war and those left behind to grieve and never be the same people again.
It is almost like the perspective of the poet sums up a books worth of emotion within one chapter.
I really enjoyed this.

[Coyote Poetry]

The best and saddest poetry were written by the Soldier poet. They appreciate nature, love and one more day of life. Thank you for reading and the comment. I do appreciate.