FOOD CHAIN (POEM)

                         Food Chain

or: The 52^nd Screaming Fish

of Thanksgiving Day, 1971

                              by Dean Metcalf

You, fish

I, fisherman

we are the Cain and Abel of muscle.

Your yellowfin tunabelly

full of lesser fish

that you have murdered,

you take my double hook

your yellow side thunders under water

slapping sunlight up through blue water

all the way back to the sun.

You fight for your life.

I fight for your life.

Braided nylon line

slices my hands with

the electromuscular force

of your fighting, then massages

sea water and diesel fuel and fish slime

into the cuts.

I, sunburned sinew, throw

silver, blue, and yellow

thrashing muscular you

screaming, bleeding

to the heaving bloody oily

     salt steel deck.

Your scream is tiny:

a squeak, like escapes the quick turn

of basketball shoe on maple floor

yet in my ear it makes the whole blue Pacific

resonate with your dying.

I reach into your slime‑slick,

     hard‑rubber jawed,

     finetoothed mouth

for the hook;

you bleeding screaming

staccato tail‑flap

sewing‑machine‑STITCH

the hook across my hand,

leaving perfect dots of blood.

My skipper's voice grapples with the voices of the wind

and the Jimmy 671 diesel engine:

"You got other fish on!

Get that hook

back in the water!"

My hand is trapped inside your mouth,

all wrenching teeth and hook‑points.

I raise the other hand,

shout into the wind,

make a fist,

hammer it down,

crush your skull.

Your eyeball,

the size of a small lemon,

scoots: does it transmit

the sight of triumphant bloody me

     aboard a dizzy deck

back to your squashed fishy synapses?

Your fifteen pounds of perfect muscle

shudders, lets go my hand.

Your blood and mine mix with diesel

and seawater, wash out the scuppers,

returning home.

I will unload your body

at the Star‑Kist Cannery.

I will walk to the hock shop in San Diego,

redeem my guitar, adding the fifty cents

your life means to me

to the dollar amounts of the lives

of your frozen kin

here in the hold of the Dora B.

Or I will fall overboard

where sharks circle,

waiting.

                                                                        ©1971, 2012  Dean Metcalf                           

BATHING BEAUTIES (POEM)

               
                                                      Bathing Beauties

              Del Mar Beach,

              California

              I.

              Slipping sideways under Cinzano umbrellas,

              afternoon sun hammers ice

              through thin walls of tonic glasses,

              extruding beads of lime sweat.

              Greased bodies sizzle,

              layed out along the griddle

              that is the continent’s edge:

              so much sexual bacon.

              In the outdoor shower,

              bikinied teens preen.

              At the steps to the beach,

              where everyone can see,

              a couple stand

              so everyone can see.

              He is tall, blond,

              tan, seventeen.

              His muscles are from play,

              for playing with:

              not from work,

              not for working with.

              She is shorter, blonde,

              nubile, fourteen.

              She wears four small triangles

                          of blue cloth.

              She wears her self-assurance

              as if she had already done everything

              the older men under the Cinzano umbrellas

                       are wishing they could do with her

              and found it amusing.

              She tosses her hair,

              turning to devour

              the stares

              that are devouring her.

                                   

              II.

              She is eighty.

              She walks with a cane.

              She has trouble with the sand.

              At the other end of her life,

              the soft girl’s bones of her feet were

              broken, toes bent back under the arch

              to form the desired opening

              for a highborn man’s erection, then bound

              to heal, if that is the right word, into

              a different kind of foot.

              They are still bound,

              her childhood trapped there

              like butterflies pressed

              in a book.

              You can see

              she loves the sun.

              She walks carefully

              past the perfect couple

              past the sizzling Californians

              lifting her withered face

              pushing the cane with withered hands

              down to where the salt foam

              washes her shortened feet,

              down to where one wave’s foam

              smoothes the sand with its coming,

              withers the same sand with its leaving,

              the withered sand a mirror to her skin.

              She lifts her face

              smiles into the sun

              smiles toward the West,

              toward China.

                                                                                        (c) 2012 Dean Metcalf

                                                                                                      P.O. Box 548

                                                                                                      Joseph OR 97846

                                                                                           

                                 3dmetcalf@gmail.com                                                                    

THO AN (EXCERPT)

Tho An 

     The door gunner nodded at what he'd heard through his earphones, leaned back from peering over his weapon at the jungle below, and looked around at us. Helmeted heads turned to him. He made a quick down/up motion with his right hand. We jacked the bolts of our weapons  -most of us carried M14 rifles; Lt. O’Neill carried a .45 caliber “grease gun”(

) - to chamber a round. We checked our safeties. Engine and rotor noise made it too loud to talk, but talk was unnecessary. Glances ricocheted from face to face with the spark of here we go. The men from "F" Company looked longer at Lieutenant O'Neill, Chituras and me than at one another. They already knew who they were, had been in enough combat together to know who'd do what when the shit hit the fan. The three  of us were Marines from the air wing who'd come along as Tactical Air Control Party. Unknowns. I met their searching eyes with as much steadiness as I could muster. 

     The chopper dropped; waist high grass welled up under us and was flattened by rotor wash. The door gunner became a demon bent on clearing his aircraft so it could get back in the air: "Out!out!OUT!" We jumped out the door, bent low, ran to the edge of the clearing. No firing yet.                                         

     "F" Company, Second Battalion, Seventh Marines, had orders to approach the village of Tho An, about seven and a half miles southwest of Chu Lai, and, if fired upon from the direction of the village, to level it. Any villagers who wanted to leave could do so. They would be rounded up and taken by helicopter, with what possessions they could carry, to a refugee camp.      

     We fanned out, got on line with the grunt platoons leading and our headquarters group a few yards behind them, and advanced on Tho An, still walking in waist-high grass. Bayonets sniked onto bayonet lugs along the line. Lieutenant O'Neill nodded toward Chituras and me; my bayonet was already out of the scabbard and I was working its ring over the flash suppressor of my M14 when I heard Captain Love (no shit, that was his name), the "F" Company commander who was a few steps in front of me, say "That's it, that's what I like to see, gimme some steel on the end of it."

     Someone did fire on "F" Company from the village, and we began the work of leveling it. First, the firing from the village was answered by the sharp cracks of the company's rifles; machine guns were set up and added their staccato voices. Then we pulled back and sat and felt the earth tremble under the artillery barrage, and heard those peculiarly sharp explosions made by the splintering steel casings of artillery rounds. 

     Next came the F4 Phantoms, sharks of the air, the sinister, howling jets with their grotesquely turned-down black snouts (grotesque, yet beautiful to every infantryman on our side), their wide, low-slung, swept-back wings and high triangular tails: the 250-pound bombs were dropped with a straight approach and a quick, turning pull-out, the bombs falling like a handful of pickles and going off in quick succession. The napalm runs were long, graceful arcs. As each jet began to climb away from the bottom of its arc, it would loose one long silver obelisk to tumble end-over-end, flashing in the sun, until it hit behind the trees and sent a cloud of red-orange flames laced with black smoke into the feathered border between green palm-fronds and blue sky.

     Most of the villagers fled when the shooting began. Others hid and waited out the bombing and strafing and napalm in the holes and tunnels under the village. When the Phantoms finished their work, we moved into the village and the rest of the people came out of the ground and were held in clusters while the demolitions men placed their charges and blew the tunnels.               

     Attached to “F” Company, 2^nd Battalion, 7^th Marines, I was ordered to guard a group of Vietnamese. There were several mothers, each with one or more young children, two or three older women who might have been mothers of the mothers, and one old man. There were no young men. I was to hold them in a tight group, watching for hidden weapons, threatening movements or attempts to flee. 

     They were terrified, especially the mothers. Foxtrot Company's combat engineers were still blowing up tunnels not many yards from where we were gathered near the village well. One charge showered us with dirt and the sharp smell of burnt C4 from the blast. A Sergeant cursed the engineers for using too much explosive, not because it was terrifying the Vietnamese, but because they might injure some of us. An occasional bullet from the firing still going on in the village cracked or buzzed by overhead.

     I'd imagined battle, but I'd never imagined this. The children I was guarding shrieked at the noise and flying debris and tried to flee their mothers' arms. With my rifle slung underarm so it was ready to hand, I moved to stop them with the lowered point of my bayonet, which terrified their mothers even more. 

     One child, a baby boy, was in front of the others and closest to me. He tried to crawl past my feet. His screams were so loud they pounded my ears harder than the explosions of grenades and rifles and machine guns nearby. I lowered my bayonet directly in front of his face, horrified. His mother screamed and snatched him back. All the mothers desperately wanted to flee the explosions, yet feared my rifle and bayonet more. They wailed in awful concert with their children. The older women joined.

     But the old man: he didn't wail, cower, try to flee the explosions or shrink back from my bayonet. He just stared at me, afraid but with that resigned, calculated, limited fearfulness of one who is going to die before too long anyway, and with a look of the purest hatred I had ever seen on a human face.

     Something happened, as I looked down my rifle and bayonet at the old man and women and children I was holding captive, which would determine the course of the rest of my life. I looked at those people, then looked around me. I saw, in the bright noon light, a veil dropping. It fell between me and everything I could see in the village. It moved top to bottom, sky to earth. The veil seemed transparent, leaving the artillery-blasted fronds of the palm trees, their napalm-charred trunks, the flaming thatch and skeletal bamboo frameworks of the huts, the urgent movements of the Marines of "F" Company, the terrified people at my feet, all looking exactly as they had a moment before. Yet they also looked completely different. I can't explain that, except to say that suddenly, and ever after, I saw the world through different eyes.

ICICLES (POEM)

ICICLES (POEM)

1/4/02 Chief Joseph Mountain

For three days, snow has fallen

onto the cabin roof, thawed, slid,

frozen, slid again, curved, re-

frozen until a foot-thick whitecap

of corrugated ice

hangs above my door, a row

of two-foot icicles

along its lower edge. As

the ice became a half-circle

the icicles turned and pointed at the wall:

the very claws of winter.

It thawed again, and the icicles thinned

at one point only, near their tops, and

they drooped, then bent

until they pointed long slender

lumpy-knuckled fingers
at the ground.

Comes the light. Blue moon glows through

gauzy clouds; white stars blink

between.

I step off the porch,

look up, watch

as light enters ice.

Blue light enters ice, turns,

pings around inside

until icicles begin

to vibrate, then hum.

Light becomes music, and

the row of crazy icicles

are skinny silver temple bells tolling

the hymn of winter.                                   

                                                               © Dean Metcalf 2002, 2012

MOMENT (POEM: 1964)

                                    Moment

                                                         for Stan Wellman 2012

1964: South China Sea

It is hours

into the night.

We are in the bowels

of the attack transport

USS Pickaway.

We are marines: young

warriors, powerful, and

think we are stronger yet.

Vietnam is a word

we barely know. Soon, and

forever, Vietnam will be

the only word we know. A gale

slaps the ship about

like a volleyball.

Our bunks are

tubular steel and canvas,

side by side,

six high. There are

two hundred of us

in a compartment the size

of your living room

if you are moderately

well off. The walls are

half inch steel plate

painted battleship gray. The light

is from single bulbs, each

inside a heavy glass globe

inside a steel cage.

This is to protect the light bulb

from the kind of men we are, and from

heavy things which fly across the compartment

when the ship is at sea

on a night like tonight.

The battleship gray walls

and the glass globes in their steel cages

drip beads of sweat

from saltwater showers. The smells are

sweat, saltwater and puke.

We can’t sleep

for being slammed into

one another. The ship

is hammered

by a heavy sea,

shudders,

nose-dives

into the next.

“Je-sus Christ!”  is uttered loudly

by one of the grunts

from Delta Company.

From another bunk comes,

shouted, “Jesus Christ

blows elephants

for a nickel a herd!”

The laughter is chopped

by a silence, as we wonder

whether the power

that’s just been insulted

is the same as that

which threatens the ship.

Then, from a third bunk:

“Hey. Knock that shit off.”

Now another silence, as

each of us signs

a secret document saying

he is afraid of the wind.                                                      ©Dean Metcalf

                                                                                              11/26/2002

DRESS BLUES 1

My mom married five times, still never got it right. My favorite stepdad was a Wisconsin farm boy as a kid who taught me to hunt and fish in the mountains and streams of eastern Oregon. His name was Bill Gano. This is for him...

Dress Blues 1

     Bill took me to a gun shop in Klamath Falls. We couldn't afford anything, not even a used rifle. We went there to dream. Maybe they'll give me some overtime, Bill said. And we'll pick spuds together on weekends when they come ripe. Maybe we can get a good used .30-30, not this year, but in time for next deer season. We could sure use the meat, save on groceries. Gotta tell your ma that, or she won't let us spend money on a rifle. .30-30's not the best gun for this country, though. Good brush gun, but short range. Need somethin' that'll reach out farther in this open country, .300 Savage maybe. That's a real nice rifle, got a good long barrel, you get a peep sight on the back, with that long distance between sights, you can be real accurate. Bill liked peep sights. He'd gotten used to them during World War II, when he'd fired the Springfield 1903 .30-06, and later, the M-1 Garand. Ought six's a good caliber, he said. You could get a lot of different loads for it, and you could buy ammo anywhere. 

     We were talking like that, and the store owner, who knew we didn't have any money, was letting me handle a used .300 Savage off the rack. He wasn't busy. "Boy handles a rifle real nice," he said, knowing that'd puff me up, which it did. Puffed Bill up a little too, because he'd taught me. 

     The little bell over the door jingled, and a man walked in. Instantly, the three of us were breathing different air. The man wore a striking blue uniform, topped by - of all things in a dusty logging and cattle town - an immaculate white cap with a brown leather brim and a shiny brass emblem. He removed the cap and tucked it under his left arm as he entered. The dark blue uniform tunic had brass buttons and a funny high collar that closed at the throat, and red piping at the sleeves and pockets. There were medals - some shiny silver, some multicolored cloth - on his left breast. The silver medals seemed to represent rifles and pistols. There was a broad crimson stripe down each leg of the blue trousers. 

     The man knew the gun shop owner; they greeted each other. I could sense a subtle change in Bill, even though he was behind me, looking over my shoulder at the man in the strange uniform. 

     The man in the uniform was watching me, seemingly   with approval, handle the .300 Savage with all the aplomb a skinny kid with glasses could muster. He nodded over my shoulder at Bill. "There's a young man I'll be talkin' to one of these days," he said to all of us. Then, to me: "Ever hear of the Marines, son?" He smiled. I was thirteen or fourteen. I knew nothing of him or his world. 

     I did know that both Bill and the gun shop owner had changed when he walked in. 

     "No," I said.

     The man might have said something else. I don’t know. I just remember how he looked, and the feeling he brought into the room. And Bill saying with a testy voice, "He's a little young for that." 

     The man in the glittering blue, white and red uniform did his business and left. I could feel the air in the room return to something like it had been before he came in, though a part of his presence remained. 

     I looked at Bill's face with my question. Part of his answer was already in his face; it contained some mixture of awe and disapproval, with a hint of myth or mystery.

     "Marine recruiter, I guess," Bill said, looking at the gun shop owner, who nodded as he leaned on the counter. I asked who Marines were, lobbing the question for both of them to catch. The store owner said something that confirmed the awe in Bill's face, about Marines being the best fighters. There was more awe in his reply than I saw in Bill's face, with none of the disapproval. 

     I was surprised at the anger in Bill's voice. He said something like, Sure, Marines have a lot of guts, but they don't care, they do all this crazy stuff, just stand up and fix bayonets and walk right into it instead of trying to do the job with less casualties. They get a lot of guys slaughtered just to prove how brave they are. 

     As we walked back to the Studebaker Bill said, very pointedly, that when my time came, I should join any branch of service but the Marines.

     I never forgot Bill's admonition. But the man in blue had done his work.

ICICLES (POEM)

1/4/02 Chief Joseph Mountain

For three days, snow has fallen

onto the cabin roof, thawed, slid,

frozen, slid again, curved, re-

frozen until a foot-thick whitecap

of corrugated ice

hangs above my door, a row

of two-foot icicles

along its lower edge. As

the ice became a half-circle

the icicles turned and pointed at the wall:

the very claws of winter.

It thawed again, and the icicles thinned

at one point only, near their tops, and

they drooped, then bent

until they pointed long slender

lumpy-knuckled fingers
at the ground.

Comes the light. Blue moon glows through

gauzy clouds; white stars blink

between.

I step off the porch,

look up, watch

as light enters ice.

Blue light enters ice, turns,

pings around inside

until icicles begin

to vibrate, then hum.

Light becomes music, and

the row of crazy icicles

are skinny silver temple bells tolling

the hymn of winter.                                   

                                                               © Dean Metcalf 2002, 2012