THIS POEM WAS FIRST PUBLISHED SEVERAL YEARS AGO IN THE ONLINE JOURNAL
RIVEN EDITED BY MICHAEL SPRING
Tell the Men
©2012 Dean Metcalf
I. I am the dream commander.
All around me
along the smoky runway
men fall, strafed
spinning
bloody
down.
I scream, but
they will not believe:
our own
top secret
quiet rotor
radar guided
night vision
heat seeking
dream metal dragonflies
have returned
to kill us.
II. "But they're ours!" men scream
as they stand, are hit, and fall
spinningbloodydown.
Running, my body floats above the runway
among thumb size neon red tracers
borne upon their own wind: puffs of it
pass between my ribs.
III. In this dream, only I know:
words
are weapons.
All around me, men see,
trying not to see.
Men fail to aim their words
at the real enemy.
Men drop their books
or read absently
standing in the open
as if life were not dangerous.
IV. Sergeant!
Work your way along the line.
Tell the men:
Fill sandbags with words.
Build a parapet to fight behind.
If they are the right words
you live.
Tell every man:
Dip each fifth word
in your own blood,
so your shots will glow red:
tracers to locate your targets
in the dark.
Tell every man to sharpen one word.
Say, You must choose:
"yes" or "no."
Snap it onto your rifle,
for when this gets down to bayonets.
Tell all the men:
It's not the men of darker skin
who broadcast our blood upon the land
as a poor shopkeeper tosses water
from a red plastic pail
to settle dust on an unpaved street.
Tell the men:
We toss our own blood in the dust
where crimson arterial spurts of it
roll into powdery skins
like water in flour
no longer recognizable as blood
it could be any dark liquid:
it could be used
crankcase oil.
Tell them:
We live and die
by what we think
by what we write
by what we say
by what we do.
Tell the men:
Get your words.
Get in the trenches.
Here they come.
Dean Metcalf
P.O. Box 548
Joseph OR 97846
3dmetcalf@gmail.com
This poem was first published several years ago in the online journal RIVEN, edited by Michael Spring. Tell the Men© 2012 Dean Metcalf
