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The following are a selection of poems written by Joel Poudrier, USMC, during tours of duty. Americans in Spain Soldiers of the nation let the day wash by like a swirl of white the water feels in the glassy pressure the waves reveal. The picture fades like a paper drifts into a view we can't resist. In a clash of living we let the stone walls fall, never listening to the nature cry that a brotherhood should never die. And when it rains, is the water clear or does it sadly disappear? All the beauty in a Spanish countryside makes the silence seem like an eternity. When will they listen to the words that never have to be spoken to be understood? It's a miracle we've come to last this long, grown to be this strong. And when the Spanish night conceals the fields are they still as close or do the lights seem like a dream we've lost? Passing courtyards we can see the ancient style but is the style we see the fingertip of a classic hand, or just a trip to the places where the sights begin and the wine is sweeter than her Spanish eyes? In the morning when we awake from the night before do we watch the sea spread on the Spanish shore? Or does it wash away and the walls fall down on our floating heads as the sun envelopes the yellow fields where sunflowers sway and farmers pray for the rains to come? -8 July 1989
"We placed paper beanies" We placed paper beanies on our dirty heads in respect for their synagogue. The old, sunken Jew smiled unevenly as we took them one by one our cameras in the other hand. Some laughed quietly beneath the breaths they took in this holy place where Mary began her eternal rest. Some stared at the intricate red and golden veil of the Torah. I looked back at the steady age of the old Jew. He smiled a little younger then I realized that we were all completely silent. -17 July 1989 Haifa, Israel
As a Marine Waiting to Leave Israel Haifa sits like a distant Christmas tree. The hills are like hands of never-ending strength. The roads are like scars on creased skin. The rocks are shattered glass. The buildings are like strong, confident eyes. The past few days were spent firing rounds at stones, hills roads and chipped, concrete buildings. In the water the ship doesn't move. The waves pass into the sea. The soldier reads a letter from home. We have fought the land and our enemies were never real. Maybe this is the gift below Haifa's sacred lights. -28 July 1989
One Night in Tel Aviv -to Cpl Mark Slatton, USMC Let's go out as friends and drink until we're brothers and float across the streets like fish. We'll swim into bars mixing with the music and wall to wall buzz of ignorant laughter. We'll sit high in cafés along the shore as the sea melts in and feel the breeze and watch the crowds walk by and wish they knew how pure we want to be. We'll laugh and unashamed we'll cry to release the pain only getting drunk can purge. We'll reminisce as to why we became soldiers and the brotherhood will seem so much closer with each drink. Our deaths will seem so noble now that we're high and we'll talk softly of how our friends will mourn us and how the ones who never even knew us will miss us when we're gone. We'll make vows of everlasting faith to each other, pledges of everlasting trust with our fermented blood. Then we'll swim back to the hotel and slur our tired minds until our words grow deep and distant. We'll fight against the night, too close to let it go. -30 July 1989 Tel Aviv, Israel
A Tour of the Holy Land Your reflection in the mirror looks so much purer than the you that I touch. I see myself behind you with my deep eyes contemplating the abstraction of sweet music that I heard on Mt. Zion, a hum that spread like morning sunlight in the replica of the room where Jesus had his last supper. I stood on a crumbling ledge trying to take a picture of their circle and ancient columns while the Jews sang meditatively in an aura of forgiveness. I wanted to be inside their circle but my flash made them blink and I slipped back to the floor. Outside, the heat pressed me and the walls of Old Jerusalem were like one giant shadow. I might have been swallowed in the blending of its cracks if it hadn't been for the Arab boy saying, "Fordy pustcard, un dolla." I handed him the money then felt the weak texture of the postcards' damage. Some of the pictures were stripped away or rubbed away and I realized it was from the constant sweat of the boy's hand. Turning for the bus I wished to hear the Jewish song one more time, to let it descent on me like the cool air from the air conditioning vents. Now in Tel Aviv, rubbing the water from my hair, ready to leave this hotel and swim into the cafe lights along the shore I see two people and realize there was Heaven in their circle of song and purity in the sweat of the boy's hand. -20 August, 1989
The Heart of Cairo Below the road on a level more constant with the wounded tongue of the Nile circled by falling walls is the City of the Dead. Empty buildings roofless, naked asleep in their own disuse crumbled side by side seeming to splice in their hollowness. Years ago, Egyptian families spent weeks visiting, living above the rot of loved ones sunken in the chasm of dry sand. I wonder what the children dreamt? Did they feel suspended or pressed above grandmother's solid eternity? Did a wind sift a sickening smell above their restlessness and reveal images of themselves in a Latin sleep of death? 1 September, 1989
Only One Wrist -Alexandria, Egypt 29 August, 1989 Waiting in the mess line I heard two marines talking, "She'd locked herself in a car," one said with a stuck smile, "and cut her wrist. A crowd of Egyptians were around her trying to get inside." "Did they get her out?" asked the other with a deep vee in his brow, like a vulture descending on a swollen corpse. "I don't know. There wasn't much blood though and she only sliced one wrist." That's when I trailed off clamping their voices behind the heat of my head thinking, what did you do— stand there in the crowd watching her white face sink into the City of the Dead? I saw myself ripping off my blue shirt wrapping it around my fist and shattering the car's side window. The glass would spray inside. The sound would surge like screams surge in nightmares. And she would look at me silent, still uncomprehending with no gratitude wishing I had stood in the crowd, wishing I were dirty and poor and weak. 3 September, 1989
(sonnet) I Don't Want to Drink Tonight in Lisbon The rain is sweeping on this day and there you stand, shaking a finger at me, saying it isn't right, it's a sin. Upon the rise sits the castle's gray body overlooking the sea (which holds no comfort for me). You begin madly walking the cobblestones to the broken gate so you can swim through the bars before it's too late. I'll turn-in and listen to my soiled friends proclaim a false salvation; watch them dodge reality with eyes that roll into my soul. But first, I stand here alone, as the sky sends another sting into my eyes, watching you disappear into the madding crowd. 16 October, 1989 |