Along the course of.

I

use to be able to hear better than this

but for the neighbor in the upper who had to vacuum at odd hours;

before Dollar Tree went to $1.25 on everything. Each night

the store manager would show my mother the scars from

where she fought. Patiently mother listened to the

harrowing tales. Beloved, some of those came

with nothing but 40 nickels for eye medicine,

or the two pack Palmolive bar soap. The cotton socks

and matching gloves, that weren't it for the horrible cold,

might last a few months. Omar got a job there, after High

school that he rarely attended. First stocking shelves

but later taking on his cell phone during his break.

So he tells the store manager, who had frequently been

pummeled by strangers, that he wanted to join the Marines.

He mused about getting his GED, his fingers dark and irruptive from

tobacco. We pull pictures of Omar of when he was just a

toddler, rocking the arms of the aluminum lawn chair and it

is sunny. The air looks hot even in the dim light of summer.

Some of him laying on his stomach , his legs dangling loose

as if in some sling like device.  Or playing airplane pilot,

his arms extended in oodles of sacrifice and glory. 

We seem passionate about this account and for a brief

moment we think of peril,  his and ours. How the 'service'

can make little monsters into men but those same little

monsters into shells of men. Dad sits in his lawn chair for

hours, rising just to go pee or to snap the pull tab of his

Budweiser Tall Can. Sometimes he talks about the attack

at Van Tuong. "614 VC were killed", but only 45 of us" he says. "There 

were corpses laying every where, some as young as Omar".  "Dollar Tree feeds

more poor veterans than Kroger and Whole Foods combined"

he mutters.  

Reviews

[emmajoygreen]

You have always written for a purpose but never as a dictator, more so a man who knows. Wonder when people sitting on their crumbling thrones realise that war is not a party but a pain in the neck PLUS any or all the limbs and necessities. Dollar Tree to Marines, back to past and tales of when Dad knew more but like others gained next to nothing, pretty well as it was when words were said.. and now. So seems too many Omars and families and vets and.. and.. human beings.
seems

[Beccy]

There are too many Omars, too many lies that serve only to perpetuate a broken and self serving system of patriotism extolled as more important than life itself.

Belated lip service is paid of course. Has been ever since the futility of conflict came into being, which was doubtless the time when man first stood upright and fancied that his next door neighbours cave was better than his.

Your poem is a powerful reminder of how futile it all is.

Beccy.

[Robert Trakofler]

I remember coming home just one week before my entire unit got deployed... I was so pissed off that I didn't get to go! I remember years later running into one of my friends that did get to go, he looked like he aged an extra 10 years:( he may have physically returned home (thank goodness) but I don't think he ever really did.

[redzone]

you always amaze me with your poem/stories of the real life we face,,,, I think your line, "Dollar Tree feeds more vets than Kroger and Whole Foods combined" is a truth about America and what it does to people that we, all of us, need to understand more deeply.... and I also appreciate how you twisted the truth about what happens to people, from their 'monster' beginnings into 'men' and shells of men.... why do we allow these rulers over us turn out beautiful babies into monsters????

I don't think it is said enough Dana, your writing is inspirational and I for one am appreciative of this...

[LJW]

Your ability to weave words into a story are uncanny.
Slices of life. Simple, unadorned, yet poetic and profound at the same time.
Love your work, Dana. Always have.

[Corset]

Walmart pulls from the shelves one day before expiration and donates it, but they do not pay their employees enough to live on, never will you work so hard for so little appreciation unless you are a soldier, a policeman, an apartment manager or a postal worker the pay is slightly better sure but the therapy costs of holding these jobs will eat up anything extra you might make.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

The Dollar Tree feeds the vets and the vets remind us with stories of how it was back then.
That awful, useless war that didn't accomplish anything but death and insanity for those who fought there.
We still are itching to get back to war....the country seems to only have purpose when we are war.
Anti-war protestors have a job then.
keeping the peace is the job of the police.
and the soldiers go to die, for what?

recognition, post mortem?

Oh, good job, dave, sorry you lost your legs...how much brain do you have left?

I remember how frustrated those were who dug the trenches....and fought with bad equipment,

this poem brings me back, and takes me forward all at once.
Excellent write...

j.

[W.k.kortas]

I am struck by the prior reviewer characterizing this as an "offering", which it is on several levels, working as an offering to the spirits to ward off even more terrible finalities or as a gift to us as readers and just plain damn human beings. And all offerings are gifts.

[John the Baptist]

This offering seems to be about generations and how things change and how they sometimes don't. The identity of the speaker is not specified, but as both parents are identified, my guess is she is either the mother or sister of the young man Omar, around whom most of the story centers. Omar is stuck in a dead end job and wants to join the Marines and get his GED. These people live in a poor, dangerous neighborhood, and his attitude is understandable. Still, the speaker is apprehensive. She looks at her father, a Vietnam vet who does little but drink and tell war stories. Is she seeing what Omar will be like in 20 years?The more things change, the more they stay the same.