Dog Company

Dog Company
hidden winter snow
frigid breath and sharp
the frozen throat
the foreign screams
the bugle blasting mortar roar
a jeep exploding in the tense Korean air
a tank a tomb an unnamed narrow ravine
off the map the hard dirt an incendiary dream
charging knives mad thrusts of senseless steel
hot hungry bullets ripping cold flesh desperate
men like flies from the northward river Yalu
hordes of orchestral sound pounding south
into a crazy wall of heavy American jazz
hectic notes irregular strangled syncopation
where rivers of doom splashed and splintered
where crazy men shit pools of blood and membrane
unsure of where to sleep of how to live and breathe
every eye and soul in tune to watch a stranger die
a riot and a roll and a thunder and a cloud
exhausted men collapsing without sound
holding the line
holding hope
Dog Company