The Treachery of Half-Sleep

My eyes
Remained razor sharp
Despite the fog
The treachery of half-sleep

Among roaming shadows
I scoured with vigilance
Aware, of the restless world
My limbs fully, prepared for flight

My pulse climbed
At predawn’s haunting loom
Festering
Stout with memory
Swarmed by forgotten ghosts

They yearn
Mournfully
To dwell
In the arms of my present

Yet these eyes shall not dull
They cannot waver
Nor recede
Into a nightmare’s
Sweltering furnace

War Raged in Short Bursts

 
I plunged
Into a murderous sleep
With concrete limbs
Obeying, the quicksand’s pull

Among the tombstones
Proud, grey and stern
They scaled higher and higher
In the gradual wane of the surface

Thunder and rain
Were a natural send off
Like mournful, pattering snares
With Mauser’s raised
For their unified salute

Once tame reveries
Lunged forth
With a primal hunger
As the world softly droned
In comfortable monotone

War raged inside
In short harrowing bursts
Unraveling my fabric
In every mile conquered

I recovered with haste
Through white, luminous halls
My nerves
Stewing in agony
Fearful, of the nights to come

Guiltless Sleep

 
My dreams were feather light
Safe and sound
In the refuge
Of eras past

Fluttering carelessly
Through nightfall’s hollow void
Never sparing a sound
Of agony or strife

From the brightest flare
Timid thoughts
Were cruelly swept aside

Grinding my reveries
To a useless pulp
To the falling embers
I greet as slumber nears

Garbed in Blue

Squawking buzzards
Hang above my rigid frame
Awaiting, with a sickly hunger
Gathering, massing
Thieving of these winter skies

Far gone and bleeding
Where the muskets bore through
Not a whimper in my voice
Not a thought in my skull
I graciously
Die, blissfully unaware

It was a fleeting honor
For the twentieth Maine
Garbed in sacred blue
Bayonets at the ready

We sprang for madness
Shouting to higher glory
As the cannons butchered, and maimed
Sparring not a soul
No fresh face unscathed
I caught my fate
Swift, clean, and painless
Another notch to their belts
Another name, pressed and sold