Joe
My intentions are honorable.
Jay
npo
cloverleaving through the night
cleaving unto what’s right
seething is disbelieving
x
”
they chickens
, they goats
“
x
“
don’t trust a man
with a mustache
“
he said
“
power
, corrupts
“
they don’t kill the chickens
they eat theyselves
“
neck
, crack
“
bring yersel’ a Harley to heel in the bottom of the night
”
come to
, parade
, rest
“
Airborne refuses peace pipes and gulping exhausts
“
breathe soldier breathe
, keep the dime
, on
, the
, sightpost
“
what’s out the tailpipe is in the mouthpipe
“
one
down
five
up
“
wonders “
why not
the Academy ring
?
“
wonders “
why not
the Ranger Tab
?
“
“
sit
one
, beg
two
“
coughs up angles of coal
coughs up pockets of pitch
coughs down carcoids n keeloids
“
count cadence
, delay cadence
, count cadence
, count
“
dad burned a telephone pole
tinkerbell said
“
breathe
, soldier
, breathe
“
tinkerbell kissed soot
into the bellow-bull snouts of they irish boy scouts
“
sleep
one
, sweet
, prince
“
he fought them every hail mary
“
open
one
, your mouth
two
now
, give me your money
, paperboy
now
, say your
one
, rosary
two
, rosary
three
“
splayed against the smokers’ tree
he got his pipes
he got his box
he strapped on his canolis and cojones
every day is a rheumy horror
every day is a cough of coal
“
sit
one
“
it is a puke of pitch
“
shake
two
“
joe coughed up the creased wing of an oil-fouled bird
x
he instructs the beardlesses
he counsels the cuntly-capped
in right angles
, courtlyship and
, collared shirts
on a Saturday
sets a dime on the muzzle break, says
“
shake soldier
, don’t
, shake
“
coaxes the callows in the codes of war
teaches the brightly towheads
to
“
hup
,two
,three
“
to
“
repeat
, after
, me
“
to
“
fiddle
, dee
, dee
“
to
“
please sir
, make me
, Infantry
“
Joe drowns yard dogs in the surf
counts the rosary
drives into the marine-grade sea
salty says “repeat after me”
x
under fifty below when he couldn’t feel a toe
“
soldier, get outta that fartsack, stand your icy watch”
“
after jersey city, how could it be this hard?”
[
lather
, peat
, recompense
]
in the beer-scum bar he saw the saw-dust girl
they broke his back
in halogene lights and chair
leaned back:
“It’s our policy that you’re too old for the leadership track.”
x
married young so
he knows of other cults
of chickens, palms, sand and feral dogs
after the hurricane the neighbors gigged their frogs and bled their hogs
x
there are ‘rrangements
nina una
“
casarte
, bien
“
nina dos
“
marry a
, marine
“
novia una
“
why
, the spare time
?
“
esposa 1
“
keep it
, clean
“
married young so
his chicken-cracking missus
he understands
[
rather
, wince
, repent
]
the large bed
the long days
the whiskey deck and that pig
of a bitch of a dog
the firestorm
“
in a
, #10
, can
“
nina dos el papa
nina una la mama
“
knit one
, bike two
“
x
he rides into bat country
mile after hour after cornstalk to the barrier sands
to the reefs and cataracts and falls
he races the mosquitos
out the frog-gig swamps, and
every time that piss-warm bitch of an ocean calls
it’s a raise of the hands
x
he rolls the throttle on
he knows they ginger Irish
don’t kill the chickens
they eat they selves
[
lather, rinse, repeat
]
, after
, me
]
slap
, pull
, observe
, release
, tap
, shoot
discharge instructions read:
“
end
, evening
, nautical
, twilight