AAR (AFTER ACTION REVIEW)
These fragments I have shored against my ruins. T.S. Eliot
i
“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.” –Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
the lesson of the back-alley blackout
is that there is no moral
no tidiness
not in this scutwork –
it’s just electricity
in the rusted vault of the skull
where in the beginning
the streets were empty lovely
smelling of cut grass and sunshine and sticks
(and an angry woman of course
whom I later learned later was only sad)
so be careful not to idealize that Shangri-La
I was just crowding out some other poor sucker
whose luck ran out
on that blessed day
ii
“We are our choices.” Jean-Paul Sartre
I wanted to say
my hands are mindless
just after I tore into the light with them
as if they had minds of their own
iii
Non nobis solum nati sumus… (Not for ourselves alone are we born)
-Marcus Tullius Cicero
Argument-
Beside each other on the ground, two yards from right wing, two sacks, A’s and B’s, A’s being to right (as seen from auditorium) of B’s, i.e. nearer right wing. On ground beside sack B a little pile of clothes neatly folded(coat and trousers surmounted by boots and hat).
Enter goad, right, strictly horizontal.
-Samuel Becket
Act Without Words II
you carry yourself
in a heavy canvass bag
your bones your tears your forced laughter
the rain is hard and silver
on the glassy highway
the windshield wipers
lag behind the rhythm
of tractor trailers’ many heavy wheels
and the syrinx of rain drums and hisses at once
out of the viscous gray sky
here I will put my bag down for a while
carry yours
iv
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” -C. S. Lewis
they could not forbid you from listening to the music you loved
or determine for you which melodies would mold your spirits to their image
any more than I can
scream at God
to stop the executions the beatings
the cacophonous rantings of men raving
from the bombed-out rubble of their own design
trapped in the gray grating undertow of old photos
I fold my mindless hands
fold my hands mindlessly
v
The Road of Life is 30 miles long. Lake Ladoga, Russia — The largest lake in Europe, located in northwestern Russia about 25 miles east of St. Petersburg.
let’s avoid the road of life
until we can cross safely
by boat
vi
“Thin Rain, whom are you haunting,
That you haunt my door?” – Edna St. Vincent Millay
we all arrive to such ruins
in such ruins
nightly beatings in fraudulent light
weeping children always on the perimeter
the wind quieting
and you falling in the middle of the walk
shocked into broken pieces
bits of you tumbling and crashing away
a macabre replica of motorcycle chunks
bounding down a bloody highway
revealing lies and trickery
and a love that cannot be given a name
unless you name it carnage
vii
“…let the verdict be heard like thunder, like a fresh, purifying thunder storm of Soviet justice.” Andrey Vyshinsky referencing a “fifth column” of enemies, traitors, and spies that seek to undermine the Soviet Union and that must be crushed during The Great Terror.
the warm silks of skunk cabbage melt the snow
and the wake-robin, its minion
emerges too from the brown scrub of winter
drinking in the leftovers
reaching through the cold crust
that had pressed its weight
where it was thought no warmth could rise
in my country our own brand of Reichsmordwoche
like population management among deer herds
the gift of massacre a deed of some skill
the littlest enemies ruined
and afterwards
their parents evaporating
into a hope the purge cannot swallow
the jape on the sinner’s dark heart always
viii
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned… (How one begins Confession)
someone utters the word Catholic
and always
several people giggle quietly
in on the not-so-secret secret
we keep returning to
kneeling
folding our hands
viiii
In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence. -Robert Lynd
why is the wind not crowded with the feathers
of cardinals that have gone
and surely we should find a bone or two
or a single feather
if not a blinding gale of red
dandelions scatter nearly to the horizon
stopped only by a stand of maples
beginning now to show the goodwill of their leaves
small red buds that become green yellow red again
before falling
but these are not the feathers of cardinals
x
…from the shore
I pushed and struck the oars, and struck again
In cadence, and my little boat moved on
Just like a man who walks with stately step
Though bent on speed. -William Wordsworth
at the tiny boat launch just wide enough for a battered pick-up
a group of middle-school children and their teacher
are discussing water safety
and how to maneuver a canoe on the river
last year’s leaves are having a rough day
whole trees have been felled by beavers
the perfect oval signatures of their teeth
written over and over again where bark was
and a dead tree in the middle of the river
massive driftwood
bares its roots to the sky
its top branches stroking the river bottom
the children are laughing
not a hint of pain in their voices
a chipping sparrow keeps flying
from one side of the river to the other
asking me to go back across with him
to get a better look at these children
their teacher
their red canoes
I’ve been fishing for an hour
without a single bite which is fine with me
when inexplicably after all six canoes all 12 children
and their teacher are on the river
floating aimlessly just off the boat launch
paddles echoing off the sides of the canoes
laughter ribboning upriver and down –
–only then do I get my first nibble
which makes me smile
in one boat two children paddle furiously forward
as they drift softly backwards laughing down river
the current having its way with them
their beautiful voices a kind of engine
that has failed them
it was a small yellow perch 7 or 8 inches
and as I reeled it in
the children hollered
let’s see! let’s see!
and I held it up for a moment before tossing it back
into the shallows at the shoreline
where it did not move for a moment
before it flashed off
a shard of stunned sun
that only I could see
that morning with the teacher
the children
the red canoes
on the languid river flow
xi
Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it.
-William Shakespeare
-Macbeth
before you
your mother and I were lost
in an airy mahogany apartment
twin oaks massive on the tiny lawn
and the front porch opened to the tops of trees
the front room cooled always
by thick shadows
the only comfort here was that
the color of the light
was the same color as the light in Sosie’s bedroom
shadow-gray enfolding the framed photo of Zio Daniel in his coffin
gray light the same color as Zio Daniel
a reminder always of the things we prayed for
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