Leaving For War
Leaving For War
By Bill Coolidge
Published: February, 2003
flags, banners,
red magic markered white sheets
"Goodbye Clay, Love, Mary Beth, Gary and Sue"
"Come back soon Bobby! Joyce and Ronnie"
up and down the street
leading to Morehead Ports
out front a gray military destroyer
slinks into inlet
ready to pick up Clay and Bobby,
muscle, weapons,
fresh faced teenage fathers
a crowd leans
against the anchor fence,
arms holding high babies
icons of a life lived loved safely bordered
bunk beds and nurseries
these lean camouflaged men
hefting a hundred-pound pack upon their back
they have already gone
don’t look back
their cadence silently strutted
out past the anchor fence, up the ramp
behind the amphibious trucks
equally adept at land and sea
these boymen?
burnt faces, black sunglasses,
staring straight ahead
into the bowels of gray
this ship has no name, no number
I listen to the whirl of the generator
see the diesel smoke
hear the keening of women, babies
the ship ekes backward, turns
glides past grazing ponies
spartina grass, white ibises
unnoticed
Reep-Bam
By Guy Span
Douglas had a Reep-Bam - it started out slow
it happened first when the wind would blow.
The tin was thin on the roof, you see
and the wind would lift it, obnoxiously.
"Reep" said the tin on a stormy night
"Bam" said the tin when the wind got light.
And the wind would blow and the tin would go
and the Reep would sound like a mournful hound
and the wind would slow and the Bam let go -
with a tin-damned wham!
Reep-Bam, Reep-Bam, Reep-Bam-Bam!
Douglas’s Reep-Bam made him see red.
It made enough noise to wake the dead.
Reep-Bam, Reep-Bam all damn night;
scared all the chickens, put the pigeons to flight.
Well, there’s a moral to this story and the moral is clear.
If you’ve gotta a tin roof, you need a tin ear.
’Cause the din from the tin will drive you to drink
no matter what else you might think.
"Reep!" said the tin on a stormy night,
"Bam!" said the tin when the wind got light.
The Least of the Terns
By Bill Coolidge
small twirling diving things,
rejoicing perpetually without effort
can it be the wounds of their hearts
waterflung, upon daybreak open?
they sing, these the mouths of holy beings
endangered for decades,
shot and poisoned,
they build nests
in abandoned airfields, forgotten landfills, "spoiled islands"
the tern, survivor’s canary, does not know
that all of our life hinges on her destiny
she brings us the white silk handkerchief of healing
from all we have tried to banish
