Thursday, March 31, 2016

Matthew Borczon- Three Poems


Matthew Borczon is a nurse and Navy sailor from Erie Pa. He served in the busiest combat hospital in Afghanistan from 2010-11. He writes about his experiences there and the difficulties of living with PTSD. His work had been published in dead snakes, the yellow chair review, Rasputin, busted Dharma, Red Efts, Dissident Voice, Big Hammer and Hanging loose. He won the Yellow chair reviews chap book contest for 2015 and his book a Clock of Human bones is available through them.



early morning rain

in this town
banjo strings
connect the
power lines
and black
crows play
mountain odes
as they caw
into the
orange sunrise
waking me
from my
dreams of
gun fire and
helicopters

my nights
belong in
the desert
in my
days I
dream of
home.



Oxycodone

spent a
sleepless night
swallowing
ghosts of
dead soldiers
as bombs
exploded on
my TV
and oxycodone
numbed pain
from a
tooth I
had extracted
after it
shattered
under the
blue glove
of an
oral surgeon
I have
drank enough
blood in
one day
to last
a lifetime

this time
at least
it is
my own.
March 2016



Maintenance

I’m tending
the graves
again tonight
cleaning sand
off stones
with a
hand broom
in a
yard of
crosses with
no names

and I’m
checking equipment
tonight 872
suction pumps
and drip poles
serviced nightly
for the
ghosts of
the dead

and I’m
writing letters
for the
wounded
tonight using
words I
don’t know
to describe
things no
one should
see for
soldiers
without eyes
or hands

and I’m
serving meals
to Marines
too weak
to eat
again tonight
hoping to
get enough
inside so
they can
rejoin their
unit in
time to
attack my
dreams


3 comments:

  1. Poignant, honest and haunting. These are some of the elements that make for good writing. 👍

    ReplyDelete
  2. thank you. I try to be as honest as I am able to be

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your words are living proof that being in a FOB isn't necessarily the safest place to be. Even if it is inside the wire.

    ReplyDelete