DB Cox- Three Poems

monuments

a passing breeze
lifts dead leaves
& scatters them over
a tattered rag doll
lying beneath
the dramatic statue
of a bronze soldier
forever frozen
in an intrepid pose
of war-movie bravado
clean-collar tourists
stare from the cover
of stylish shades
taking secret comfort
in the pathetic apparition
wrapped
in an army overcoat
nose down
in a pool of piss
baptized
purified
crucified
in the mute humility
of his own guilt
an unconscious monument
tangled in green
triple-canopy dreams
where
inside crusty
rust-filled ears
the white noise
of city traffic
hums like a Huey-
spectral MedEvac
searching for a soul
lost
more than forty years ago
somewhere along
the mekong river


secret parades

time rides a river
memories rust
like old bullet holes
in highway signs
sighs of relief
now that you’ve
all gone
moved along
with your hard facts
about bags
of flag-wrapped kids
who ate red dirt
on height-numbered
killing hills
celebrated at home
with silent songs
of praise
in secret parades
down vacant
american avenues
sanctified
by sculptors
shaping black walls
with phantom names
immortalized
by painters
mounting blank canvas
in empty frames


statistical soldier

more than five years
back from iraq
shadowed in the light
of a 40-watt bulb
past the point
where hope breaks
he blows out his brains
as easy as a candle
& drops
facedown
like an unstrung puppet
onto the basement floor
no one
not his mother
not his father
not his friends
had noticed
the night in his eyes

here is the broken body growing stiff
in the damp, soulless cold
here is the solitary light moving across the sky
from one dark space to another
here is the traveler confused by the journey
no way to get back home
here is america's statistical soldier
touched by "friendly fire"
here is the stilled heart
that could not be filled
& here we are-left to guess
about a split-second in time
only he could see

i choose to imagine a cloud of beautiful colors
rising into the darkness-
orange fading to sapphire-blue
painting the heavens an impossible hue-
a burning red point
moving over a sharp silver line
that cuts between meaningless human noise
and perfect solitude

that place of rest
he has been seeking

there-by the morning star