World War One | Trench Warfare and Love

I. The Blow-Job Soldiers, their day done,
Lie in fields under armies of sweet Sweet
William. A light calvary of poppies
Comes blowing across the fields.

Dreaming of golondrinas and columbines,
Like soldiers, you and I make
The usual mess of things,
Making a mess of our lives,
Of the world,
Of each other.

I should like to remember you
Under comic-sized balloons, soaring tracers,
Wading with me on dark rivers, rivers
Of darkness spead across the fields.

II. You asked me if I could remember the names
Of all the places where I had found you ---
There where the lines were carved in mud:
Passchendæle and Ypres, the Somme.

You said we could be soldiers with heart,
Bayoneting others (and ourselves) in the heart,
By our own hands: bees turned mad
Turning on themselves, or dogs shaken
By the thrashing rat's-tail of wisdom.

III.The blow-job soldiers wallow in snow fields,
Spreading love through the mud-grey lilies;
Hired to fight the beasts who had attacked
Out of the bog, to steal our civilization,
Making hay in the dark with our women,
Bayonetting our babies in utero,
Ghosts of gods, fighting like gods,
Playing with the conscience of the ages.

Once you said you would stab me
If I could forget the way and
Remember the love we murdered
Passing souls back and forth
Like soldier passion trampling the graves,
Head stones tumbled with desire.

It is then that I think on you
And the heaving of dying stars
Hot spasms of the large hot stars
That have grown into themselves
Into infinity.