ghost blood
some war thoughts on veteran's day
ghost blood oils the gears of history;
along with everything else—
we do and say and cannot
do and say and will not do
and say. 
About 1 billion people have died in “important” wars since 1000 BCE.
(probably)
This number doesn’t include “not officially war” conflict deaths.
This number doesn’t include “state terrorism” or “mass killings” or “political repression” during “peacetime”.
This number also doesn’t include any attempt to quantify the lowered quality of life, lost years, or post-war effects like PTSD that clearly kill people in the thousand little ways that Tragedy always has.
During the same time period, about 80 billion people were born.
That means about 1.2% of all modern people have died in War.
And I’m almost certainly undercounting.
How many do you know?
Veteran’s Day makes me think about stuff this.
So do crowded spaces.
So does the autumn breeze as it whisps and flickers through the last few leaves left in the canopy.
i think about the unknown soldier a lot.
the forever lost GI. a voice adrift in time the quiet yawp of effort who wholly hoped it rhymes; the centurion, the partisan, the grenadier, the grunt, the scout, the cook, the nurse, the gun the handler on the hunt the ace when his feet touch the dirt the foxhole with the sump the shieldmaiden who fell alone the sailor with the pump the hoplite in his field of wheat the sniper on her stump a prophet's martyr's smiling face the ambush and the jump the mamluk, the toa, the bushido way the hwarang, the holy, the hessian pay the yurt war council, the "don't give an ounce" or the nightmare human wave the tartan, the spartan, the divot in the dirt from the aching, breaking, bended knee aim true and still alert the apsáalooke counting coup, the armored, mobile tanker crew the pocket note from her to you the joke of hope to lift the mood the canteen cup, filled up with muck, the rations yet to come the joyproud smirk of "finally here" the craters of verdun the lotus-eater; fresh faced i fear some poor, forgotten cunt
every time i walk the path along a battlefield
or just a field where i
know something happened.
i’m forced to remember that
humanity abhors the violent act, but glorifies the violent context. we love our hero, but paint our stories by delicate number— lines set by ‘decent’ folk who don’t want a fuss or now, i guess, algorithm. and the punch is always just thrown by him, except it’s really Him; isn’t it? big Mostly Man punching and stabbing and shooting through him and her and him again, the long arm of legitimate violence is cloaked in the innocence of the spear.
the “real” and “not real” are too close now,
yet somehow have never been further apart
i think we have some curious problems to solve this century.