Shaken

          200 minutes sleep

     no time to hide

          from dreams

     nicotine and caffeine

          soldier

     marching

          through the

     undergrowth

          tattered feet

     the spirit warrior

          bullet as a 

     souvenir 

          unknown rune stone

     clutches throat

          Tree of Life

     gets burnt in sun

          dragon twitches

     bites the master

          does not take

     one day off

          swollen legs from

     insect dinner

          life is good

     somewhere else!

  

Reviews

[barleygirl]

I don't know why this came into my mind as I was reading your poem, but I thought about another writer who wrote about being bored recently and how I told this person that bored people seem to be expecting life to dish out something entertaining so we don't have to deal with the drudgery of how life usually is for most people. Your poem perfectly illustrates my point to this other writer. We are all whacking our way thru a bug-infested jungle, it seems! I love your details, attitude, & ending (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[gram linski]

thanks, Margie I love your details, attitude and endings too, hugs back at ya , did you get my two pics, lol

[barleygirl]

did not get any pics from you . . . where should I look? (a pic of you would make my day!)

[gram linski]

do you want shoulders or dicks or minds or big muckle hands, how about a vadge snap, lol

[barleygirl]

I'm still working on a big pile of wood that my neighbor dropped in my driveway last week. I don't think I have the bandwidth to handle anyone else's wood at this time . . .

[gram linski]

is that a euphemism for mmmmmmmmmmmmmm baby, ooooohhhhhhh

[barleygirl]

heh! heh! heh!

[PaintedBirdy]

i really like this. it has some je n'ais se quoi that is hard to identify. we have to keep keeping on. i lived in a third world country for a bit, so "insect dinner" makes sense, haha. keep living, and survive everything! life is good somewhere else! (sends love and socks)

[gram linski]

keep yer spunk stained socks, dude but appreciate the read, slange,

[PaintedBirdy]

welcome! you're right, i'll keep my socks! thanks for sharing this read!

[gram linski]

technically I shared the write, the read was all yours, lol

[PaintedBirdy]

brilliant! i'm just drunk again, thank god!

[Robert Trakofler]

Interestingly last week was the first anniversary of the tree of life massacre here in Pittsburgh many of my friends and customers are from that synagogue. Part of this poem feels like how I felt for them as they commemorated the fallen in a vigil outside its doors. the leftover trauma echo in repeat cycle as they all choose to hold hands and love over the hate but the hate still echoes like it does for the soldier long after the battles have ended

[gram linski]

thanks, B, was written in Israel with war on three sides and the sea on the other those guys know how to party and enjoy life

[Eilis]

My dad was in Vietnam. According to my mom, the experience made him unfit for family life. I’m not sure what the truth is because he only spoke to me about it once. And in a very general way, but as a child of a former soldier, and a child without actual connection, I have tried to understand it from my own context.

Not sure Hollywood productions are the best food for thought, but you go with what you got. Anyway, I’ve developed a kind of kingdom in my head regarding the life of the soldier. The loneliness and psychic pressure. The uncertainty. The Jacob’s Ladder life continuations where everything thereafter is colored by the past.

Your poem made me think of those things. The ways men are changed by experience and the total lack of control they have over the transformation. The way you present it here, it’s almost like a mythical world. A dreamscape. There’s certainly the sense that one has about as much control as the dream figure. The surreal nature of things stamping itself on the mind.

The idea that ‘life is good somewhere else’ is the kicker for me. But perhaps it’s what keeps us going at times. The somewhere, something, someone else that is waiting on the other side if we make it through.

One just hopes we will still care when we reach the place where the jungle parts and the sun falls full on our faces.

Your title is excellent as it offers a sense of what’s to come, and we understand as we reach the end. Great atmospheric poem, Gram.

[gram linski]

As insightful as ever, Eilis, wrote this in Israel where everyone is in the Army, and a reservist until your 45, but when typing it in I got a Vietnam kinda vibe, just read an amazing book about the Vietnam war, did you know it started in 1945, by those pesky French fuckers, right after the end of the war, they decamped en masse for Hanoi, (rocks, fine band,)

[Eilis]

Nope, didn’t know that. Seems a bit like our drawn out time in the Middle East. History just keeps repeating.

[gram linski]

Aye the Russians were laughing their asses off when the US asked to invade Afghanistan

[R.E. Ray]

Whether intended or not, this is mind's image of PTSD. This is an image I know too well. The last two lines are the words usually spoken to oneself in the dark. This is raw, right down to the nerves, and damn good writing.

[gram linski]

thanks Ray wrote it in Israel, where national conscription is mandatory, unless you are mad or queer, all my mates were or had been in the army, you would go to a nightclub and there would be loads of soldiers and a stack of rifles against the door

[Einstein Noodle]

had to figure out how many hours that is ;} not too shabby of a nap actually ... nice title ..shaken out of sleep as it were ..by dragons and runes ... this reminds me so much of where me nog wanders as i drift off ... places that shake me from going over the border into sleep .. but out of a certain unconsciousness .. so on coming 'round there is only feelings of fear and its babies anxiety and doubt ... it is a fine world ... somewhere else ... i like the honesty of this one ... who hasn't been there eh!?
E.

[gram linski]

thanks, E, the grass is always greener unless it's all manky and s**t stained,

[Einstein Noodle]

yes ... keep to the meadows .. not the pastures :))))))))))))))))

[gram linski]

but the cow s**t is where those lovely mshrooms grow, tis the season to be merry, my friend

[gram linski]

there is a God metaphor, in there somewhere, haha,

[Einstein Noodle]

yes ... if one believes and sees ... God is in all things ... big and small ..... we have Morel mushrooms, here, that grow in sacred places .. and few there are that find them ;)

[John the Baptist]

Sherman has still not been proven wrong about war.

[gram linski]

is that a good thing or a bad thing ? thanks for the read John,

[John the Baptist]

It's a sad thing. War is still hell.