jargon moderne
would name me
spectral being
but call myself
a man
a young man
too young
to be a man
to die for a unforgiving
futile unnecessary war
but was not the first
or never be the last
fancied myself a poet
& an orchardist
inherited my father’s land
when he died of tuberculous
then men came to my little Virginia town
pulled all the us even the boys
onto the main street
you die here as a traitor
or perhaps in battle as a hero
skirmishes & encounters
raged all along these land of
this commonwealth where
watered runs divide into branches
making it nearly impossible
to forge with cannon or artillery
re-enactments on these knolls
the blue and grey in their
mock battles & crips clean uniforms
while we were knee deep in mud
all sides in brown so you knew not
friend neighbor or foe
gentry came from DC to watch us
women with parasols
high on the hills picnicking
men smoking cigars as if we were
chess games upon checker boards
survived the first major battle
only to fall as the second one was in retreat
last rites were by a vulture
who looked skyward to confirm
his next meal had passed before him
over time as rain & floods eroded Bull Run
my bones were covered – but not laid to rest
an occasion newspaper tumbles by
how half a century after perishing
almost two hundred poets artists writes
died in one day at the beginning of a battle
of a world war – one of two read about
across the ocean in another continent
even today upon land where Jesus walked
hatred rages on today in karmic cycles
seems I’m in eternal limbo and can’t move
beyond this haunting battlefield
bound here at the place
and to only watch passages of time
this log – I’ve sat here for years at a time
seasons change but the facts remain the same
can’t change the past
as it repeats itself
over and over again
or the future that lies in wait
rarely even the present can be dealt with
days turn to weeks to years to decades
still the scores remain unsettled
a man with a metal detector
scanning my remains
the chain around my neck
spade drove like a spike
you can damn my body and my soul
but that was the cross my mother
gave to me as I was shuttled to the depot
ire gave me rise and an unknown voice
You take that and I will take you
my apparition turned him
into a leaded glass of absinthe
frozen then ran like a buck
over that wooden fence
sometimes on rainy evenings
just as dusk turns into night
in the enveloping darkness
you can still hear the echo
of the whistle of that Manassas train
that brought me here to my fate
+++++
TERRENCE SYKES