scattered seed corn under a shadow

in a conventional but relaxed way
i sat at my desk in my bedroom
flipping through pages of disorder,
looking for grains of dust.
there were piles of old Atlantic magazines,
rumpled socks, and album covers stacked
knee high with an Elton John record at the top.
Rubber Soul was like my evening shirt, starched
and out of sight in the middle of the pile.
that one, I didn't see.
but Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was nearest,
and being within reach when i leaned backward,
i thought sometime i'd give it a suitable play for
my friends while i wore some incredible costume
with long sideburns and designer glasses.
but my current book, Neptune's Inferno, would have to be finished first,
and in it i had just landed on Guadalcanal with the US marines,
certain that Japanese soldiers were watching from the
nearby jungle, as i deepened a taste for adventure on an
island in the south Pacific no one really seemed to want,
but soon too many would die defending to the last man.
Shelley had already written a line in his "Adonais":
"He has outsoared the shadow of our night."
Shelley knew the honored glory of the combat dead, and i heard
his hymns in my head, but soon my ancient AM/FM radio,
catching the light from the rising sun, chimed in with a
hissing We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel, the piano
man, who was to become a friend of Elton,
although he never wore an awkward outfit.
by the time the Guadalcanal campaign ended in early 1943,
Billy was not yet born in real life.  when he did become famous,
he never started a fire or knew that a day would come when not
a single participant in the epic of World War II would remain alive
to tell his tale.  i quickly grew tired of thinking about Jamaica Jerk Off
and turned down the volume on the music so i could hear
my own breathing.  in the predawn, all i could see were
men in individual foxholes scattered like seed corn.
and i finally found my lost wristwatch in a pants pocket, but
decided at the last second to leave it there, unmarked by a date of birth.