40 Days

sleepwalker can never die

he is the chemical soldier

composite of latex

and atropine,

hellfire, warthogs,

desolation, pride,

apaches, lasers,

dust

devils swirling,

screaming fire

deaths, machine

worship, young blond

pilots flashing thumbs

up, excited smiles

of interviewed

military wives, shrapnel-

paced rockeye

anti-personnel

bombs spraying

death like fireflies

over a texas barbecue

of human flesh

stretching sixty miles

across open desert,

armageddon

over eden, algebraic

mosaic

of witchcraft, dot

pattern magic of omens

and signs,

victims never

knowing what

hit them, vivid

delivery of hell

to nineveh,

incendiary

reduction of tissue

to shadows on the sand,

incineration of boots

with human feet still

in them, pain,

mania,

technology,

history, delirious

victims bleeding,

eagle with the brains

of a weak and

frightened victim in

its beak, unhappy

fate, grief,

shame, helpless

rage

Copyright Credit: Tom Clark, “40 Days” from Light and Shade: New and Selected Poems. Copyright � 2006 by Tom Clark. Used with the permission of Coffee House Press, www.coffeehousepress.org.

Source: Sleepwalker (1992)