The Mission

The Mission

Deadly booby traps
Green poisonous iguanas
Flicking shrewd deadly tongues
Inhale the night air
Hunting to kill the hunger
Improvised explosive bombs

The tank soldier
Inspects with a vulture's eye
Dead dogs, nitrated Hell-hounds
Compressed with old nails
Strewn along the bloody highway
A wily warrior smells death

Yesterday's memory
A blood-stained Mr. Potato Head
An Armless fallen comrade
In the crimson light
Of a vivid rising sun
Today's mission, to survive

The hypotenuse
Of the Sunni triangle
A carnivorous wolf trail
Devours devotion
To Islamic holy truths
A drastic caricature

America reels
An opiated nightmare
God on the lips, blood on the
Hands, on life-support
Symptoms of withdrawal
Shivering, shaking, queasy

An insurgency
A mosaic of misfits
Glued together by an -ism
Hangs on terror's wall
Casts a dark shadow worldwide
Blankets the birds of freedom

Dictators come and go
Tides that follow the moon's smile
Leave behind foul sediment
Lifeless carcasses
Every new wave a surprise
Every new tyrant the same
With fresh minds to devour

But I am preaching
Pedantic, analytical
My heart, a tear-stained sponge
Soaks up today's mail
American Heroes Memorial
Three thousand and counting, gone.

KBris 2006