Day 23 brings us Brian Turner, with two poems from his second collection, Phantom Noise (© 2010, Alice James Books).

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE POEMS

In his first full-length collection, Here, Bullet, Brian took us into the world and psychology of 21st century combat, and guided us through a harsh desert landscapes fraught with military, civilians, causalities and hallucinations.

In Phantom Noise, he brings us home to the “clarity of rage” that punctuates our daily lives, and weaves threads between worlds until the “double-headed nails” in a hardware store become “firing pins,” and the opening and shutting of a cash register is the sound of “machine guns being charged.”

The first poem below, “Howl Wind,” comes and goes in an instant, but leaves a sour taste as we watch for the high angle of hell and wonder where the mortar will land. The second, “Insignia,” focuses on an unfortunately familiar war story, and Brian does a wonderful job serving as witness to it.

Howl Wind


                    I see people riding on shrieking horses,
                    steering clouds of sparkbelching fires
                    on their way to flame life out of you
                     —Mahd Al-Aadiyya (4000 BCE)

Launched from its tube, the mortar round
accelerates to the apogee of its flight,
rising fast to what the gunners call
the high angle of hell, the round
suspended over the city lights below,
where any one of us might find ourselves
deep within the very last day of our life,
but wholly unaware of the fact—unaware
that the steel-hard visitations of death
hang from the heavens above,
and if there’s someone we would kiss
good-bye, or a few words we’d rather share
than leave unspoken, then now is the time,
because just as missiles were hurled in fire
from catapults of old, a mortar round
howls a night wind over the city,
and just where it lands
we will see.

**

Insignia

                    One in three female solders will experience
                    sexual assault while serving in the military.

She hides under a deuce n’ half this time—sleeping
on a roll of foam, draped in mosquito netting. Sandflies

hover throughout the night. She sleeps under vehicle exhaust
and heat, dreaming of mortars buried beside her, three stripes

painted on each cold tube, a rocker of yellow hung below.
It’s you she’s dreaming of, Sergeant—she’ll dream of you

for years to come. If she makes it out of this country alive,
which she probably will. You will be the fire and the hovering

breath. Not the sniper. Not the bomber in the streets. You.
So I’m here to ask this one night’s reprieve.

Let her sleep tonight. Let her sleep. Pause a moment
under the gibbous moon. Smoke. The gin your wife sent

from New Jersey, colored mint green with food dye
disguised in a bottle of mouthwash: take a long swig of it.

Take the edge out of your knuckles. Let it blur your vision
into a tremor of lights. The explosions in the distance

are not your own. In these long hours before dawn,
on the banks of the Tigris river, let her sleep.

In her dream, your eyes are pools of rifle oil.
You unsheathe the bayonet from its scabbard

while she waits. On a mattress of sand and foam, there
in the motor pool, she waits to kiss bullets into your mouth.

**

A Poet a Day is a month-long celebration of poets and poetry, in honor of National Poetry Month. Writers reserve all rights to their work, and all work appears with their permission.

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Day 22 brings us Oregon poet Scot Siegel, with a poem entitled “Autumn Turns Through Stratified Wars.” The poem previously appeared in The New Verse News, October, 2009, and will appear in Scot’s forthcoming collection, Skeleton Says (© 2010, Finishing Line Press).

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE POEM

Scot starts off with a musing that seems very tied to the moment and place, but by the fourth stanza, we sense that we are about to shoot off elsewhere. Soon all color is gone from the sky, and sounds that a moment ago arrived in a breeze seem to come in a rumble. The poem concludes with a reminder that we are all being summoned to the same end.

Autumn Turns Through Stratified Wars

A few little leaves alight on the sleeper wind
lemon, iron-orange, vermilion
but there’s no dive-swiping gnat-catching tonight

Some songbirds sense the slack-season upon us
stillness readies the river, trees glimmer
and we lean uneasily into the quiet . . .

Three warblers balance on one blackberry cane
not ordinary warblers, yellow-breasted chats
gone silent in the breeze––

There’s no yellow chip; no whistle, caw, nor rattle
just three imperceptible heartbeats screaming
through silver thorns & bramble––

                    *

Is their night not unlike our country?
Somewhere, a raptor hovers, drags her talons
over Arab neighborhoods, while we lie awake . . .

In my wife’s eyes a blue flame flickers
World News, a helicopter turns, delivering
or receiving the dead . . .

We hardly notice midnight passing over
as we tilt and spin on the dreadful wing of a hawk
Who says she loves us?

Crows on our tail, relentless––
I think I hear one say:

          Come home

**
A Poet a Day is a month-long celebration of poets and poetry, in honor of National Poetry Month. Writers reserve all rights to their work, and all work appears with their permission.

**

It’s worth mentioning that we’re heading to the sixth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, not as a political statement, but mostly as a historical one. I don’t have much else to say about it (actually I do, but since all writing is political, whether it is or isn’t, I’ll let the idea of writing be my statement, and invite you to read between the lines) – and don’t have all that much to say about the fact that public interest, in the U.S. at least, seems to have tapered, what with so many minds turned to all things economic (which, when you think about it, is tied into the costliness of the Iraq intrusion anyway…).

This post is about art and story. After all, the war may end in 2010, but it will last in our consciousness for years afterwards, especially as it begins to inform the work of writers, poets and filmmakers, the way Vietnam informed and continues to inform the work of people like Tim O’Brien, Bruce Weigl and Oliver Stone, to name a well entrenched few.

With this notion I openly pose the questions, “Where are the stories of this war, and when will they find us?” Of course, one need only linger in the halls of VA offices, stand in line outside of job placement agencies, talk to a recent returnee on the streets, or saddle up next to a local guardsman or woman in the nearest watering hole or church to hear, see and learn. Our vets are everywhere, but if you’re anything like me, you’re wondering where you can find their stories, and when will they become readily accessible for public consumption, conversation and discourse.

Which leads me to the true nature of this post: Brian Turner. Poet. Graduate of the University of Oregon’s MFA program. Soldier. In 2005, Turner’s first full-length collection, Here, Bullet won critical acclaim from places like the New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, the New Yorker, Salon Magazine and The Military Review. His work was featured all over the place, and the book continues to serve as a beautiful and gritty first-hand account of a soldier’s life in a war zone. (Turner also spent time in Bosnia during the U.S.’s intervention.)

This week, as we roll and blow into the war’s sixth year, we’ll be featuring a selection of poems from Here, Bullet (Tuesday on the Guest Writer page) as well as an interview with Brian (Friday, Interviews). Brian kindly gave his permission to feature the work and share some good words about a lot more than writing.

Keep an eye out.

Dave