Sonnettics

Even in the ice of winter
as we walk across the river
to the city, to the life
we feel the warmth of the water
as it flows around and beneath
flows intuitively without rhythm

Even in the steam of summer
as we walk upon the island
from the city to the life
we feel the cool rain
as it drips from the clouds
drips rhythmically in a torrent

And as the water roars into the
darkness of the night and
the night slips softly into the
wetness of the morning
nothing has been cleansed
unless we see that it is clean

The Bullet’s Tale
Scott Ennis
War Poetry Contest 2004
Honorable Mention

As I cooled I awoke
and felt the heat
and smelled the smoke
which never really seemed to clear away.

I was rolled into a machine
with a million of my brothers,
all the same, exactly like the others
with the name .223 stamped firmly on my back,
then quickly packed
into a cardboard box.

For months I waited,
rattling against my comrades
in the dark, hearing nothing.
Then a jet engine roar.
Then yelling and explosions.
My box was suddenly cracked harshly open
and I fell upon a foreign dusty ground.

I lay there, one round.

I saw the hand of Private First Class Galloway
pick me up, trembling slightly,
wild terror on his face.
Mingled with sweat and resignation,
breathing heavy
with his back against a wall,
he jammed me in his magazine.

He tapped the magazine
once against his Kevlar helmet
and I felt my self slide back,
seated properly
against some mechanism.
The magazine was then forced,
coated with sand and oil,
grating into his weapon.

I felt the bolt release
and kick me forward
locked and loaded,
and I stared straight up the barrel,
past the spiral rifling
and the flower-like flash suppressor
at the hot blue sky.

As PFC Galloway lowered his rifle,
my fate,
I saw in sequence:
a cloud,
a roof,
a wall,
a road,
a man.

Something exploded inside me
and I felt the rush
of the gun barrel
with a heated urgency.

The nameless lieutenant held
a Kalashnikov with a cracked stock,
bound by duct tape.

I rose in my trajectory
above his face
and saw his men fanned out behind him.
One wounded and grimacing in pain.
One desperately pulling at a jammed rifle.
One who looked like his cousin or brother.

Then I fell into his chest.

I tumbled through his gut
and all I saw was red blood
and all I heard was
the ripping sounds of fabric,
and the ripping sounds of flesh,
and the ripping sounds of organs, soft and subtle.

Then there was a dull thud
as I lodged firmly in the bone of his pelvis.

The battle noises eventually subsided
and I briefly heard women wailing,
then shovels full of dirt
thumping against a hollow chest.

It was dark and stank
of rotting flesh
for many months,
and then it was just dark.

It has now been a hundred years.
I never heard who won the war.
I just sleep here,
nestled in the pelvic bone
of one of the war’s casualties.

I often think
about that cloud I saw
in that blue sky
beyond the rifling
and the flower-like flash suppressor.

She does not enter the garden.
The olive trees keep their own counsel,
leaves whispering a grief meant for men
who will not stay awake.
Mary waits where the path thins—
not close enough to interrupt,
not far enough to flee.
She hears nothing clearly.
Only the ground breathing.
Only the night tightening its grip.
Only a weight in the air that presses
like a hand over the mouth of the world.
Inside, someone kneels.
Outside, someone keeps vigil.
She does not pray for escape.
She has learned that love does not bargain.
It listens.
It endures.
It lets the dark finish speaking.
A disciple’s snore drifts toward her,
soft as betrayal.
She does not judge.
She knows fear has many postures.
When the garden begins to tremble—
when footsteps gather like a verdict—
she straightens, already standing
where tomorrow will need her.
She will remember this night
without words.
She will carry it like oil,
sealed, unbroken,
until the stone is rolled away.