by-Matthew F. Blowers III
The Beauty Found In Sacrifice.
Baptism in mud and blood,
muting each bullets twang
while the gaping maws of six corpses
measure the rainfall,
next to a severed arm
extended nearby
its fingers bent into
the bullshit sign.
U.S.Marines chopped
into greens,
peppered by shrapnel,
sprinkle some poppy seed
lettuce pray.
But I've gone AWOL
inside my shellshocked skull
to some warm cafe
with a steaming cuppa,
and an Ovation guitar
round body,
unplugged,
and I'm wailing to that girl
at the third table from the left,
with the cornflower blue eyes,
my love for her handpicked,
stroked hard and then soft
dimpling her cheeks into smiles.
Then she rises and
wends her way towards me,
hips syncopated to the music,
touching my arm
with inviting eyes.......
Suddenly I 'm shaken
fiercely, by a medic
as he tightens the tourniquets
every few minutes till dustoff.
I'm no longer wailing
love songs,
I'm screaming
in abject horror
at the stumps
of my one arm and one leg,
grenade launched into oblivion.
Time locks my gaping jaw
spewing inhuman sounds
as my bulging eyes
test their sockets,
for what seems eons
till one more tiny
assault on my flesh,
pinpoints true escape
into the vague fog of morphine
washed in the sweet bliss that will
mask my future without hope.
Eighteen months
and two purple hearts later,
I found that girl,
while strumming
my steel guitar
with my life-like prosthetic
sitting on a high back stool
baptized in Black Velvet
shots and a chaser,
in a bar just east of despair,
but this time I woke up
in her arms