navwin » Archives » Open Poetry #37 » The Wounded Flag Bearer
Open Poetry #37
Post A Reply Post New Topic The Wounded Flag Bearer Go to Previous / Newer Topic Back to Topic List Go to Next / Older Topic
Edward Grim
Senior Member
since 2005-12-18
Posts 1154
Greenville, South Carolina

0 posted 2006-05-17 11:39 PM



The Wounded Flag Bearer


The rain fermented on the sidewalk
in all the seeming of a cast iron brewery,
seeping into the limestone of the concrete…

Peace monotonously trudged on
making it hard to habit the urge
with something other than anxiety and disquiet.
His thoughts fell upon the olden days
of the baleful yesteryears wrought with
nonexistent pain and fear brought by cause.

His urge to remember the war he lost was stronger
than his will to forget the pain he never felt.
He remembered the battlefield where his moments
lost equaled the moments he had never experienced.

He was shot down by a phantom blow that jumped
him from behind a lone pine tree.
After that was the afterglow of the rain throwing
steaming drops of anguish upon his tearless face.
Then came the men in white coats,
The Red Cross, swimming through his blood
to get to him, to save him from his work.
The stained-red hands with men attached to them came
to spirit him away on their stretcher
with a guardian angel holding up each end.
It was after his fall from grace that he floated
away to a Heaven with bleached, bloodless walls.
Surrounded by withering souls without the steam
to move on in the cold, cruel world that put them there.
Incapable of thundering out of the Heaven to return
to his war where he fell.
Unable to leave the haven of safekeeping,
they all waited to be joined by more.

Though he did not.
He simply thought of his trials to identify
the army of braver men than he.
His job, his life flying high above him
In front of an army ready to die for the flag
That flew in the hands of a simple man.

He remembered things, not many though.
He remained on his back
watching the rain fall to the earth…

And the rain fermented on the sidewalk
in all the seeming of a cast iron brewery
seeping into the limestone of the concrete.

“True absurdism is not less but more real than reality”
- John Simon

© Copyright 2006 Edward Grant - All Rights Reserved
Post A Reply Post New Topic ⇧ top of page ⇧ Go to Previous / Newer Topic Back to Topic List Go to Next / Older Topic
All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format.
navwin » Archives » Open Poetry #37 » The Wounded Flag Bearer

Passions in Poetry | pipTalk Home Page | Main Poetry Forums | 100 Best Poems

How to Join | Member's Area / Help | Private Library | Search | Contact Us | Login
Discussion | Tech Talk | Archives | Sanctuary