| Poems from the Battlefield a work in progress by K. Mercurio Gotthardt |
| No part of these pages may be duplicated without express consent from the author. Copyright 2005-2008 K. Mercurio Gotthardt www.LuxuriousChoices.net last updated: April 27, 2008 |
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| Poem from the Battlefield Soft stepping fall leaves settle on these battle trails, quiet march of ghosts. My mother believed my soul is damned, for I fail to take wine and host. Mother need not grieve-- though we know all soldiers flail at enemy boasts, and troops die in sheaves, these acres still help to hail ideals. I come close to the white birch trees saluting through still-green vale, my god's command post. Mother, be relieved. Here, full life and death prevail. I AM saved--almost. |
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| Meeting the Regiment Four miles of no one but deer--no wonder sudden sounds of their voices startle me. I slip on ancient shades, and when I look up they are there-- not one, but fifty or so, soldiers, wool jackets, a gray regiment re-enacting war, marching the furious routes of old convictions, standing stark in cool, April air against the hay. Shocked at first, I half smile, seeing myself from their eyes: modern woman, Yankee, trusting fate to Confederates. They stand straight at attention, tip their broad hats, nod, Good Morning, Ma'am, men lowering chivalrous eyes as I slowly pass. |
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| Hiking to the Chin Ridge Ruins Heavily booted, persisting through snow, over soldiers, silenced in death's white womb, winter rustling where old war stories grow. Heavily booted, persisting through snow, grey, childlike specters from long ago, uniformed visage from premature tombs. Heavily booted, persisting through snow, over soldiers, silenced in death's white womb. |
| To The Hikers Your spring stroking of young grass on bare feet insults these stone monuments to those torn booted boys with aching arches and streams from wounded toes. Grass becomes caustic, not erotic silliness for urban hikers. Are you resentful I intruded, ruined your weekend getaway? This is no field for love--we call it sacred ground. Put your shoes back on. Pick up your backpack. Feed your sandwich to the crows. March to early death. |
| for the red badge I march with you but have no wisdom of deep cut, or the plains horse rut, or the ridge at Chinn, or really anything in your blue-gray warring. I'm marching with you, but my jacket is see-through and my boots too new. My wants are more than anything you have even dared to imagine. I would flog myself if I believed it would help transcend me to hell, be rid of this need, these bleached fantasies that feast on a better me. Temptations seduce me from keeping time with you. My laces are loose, my thighs muscling, torso aching from disguised relentless desires. I want to conform, be worthy of uniform, serve as I have sworn. Put this down before I choose that I must die or help you win this war. |
| Enlisting Here is a list of what I want to do before I die: to love without reserve; to peel apart the wool that serves to bind and blind my heart; to feel for once without thought, let the hot blood of holy human nature not release control; to stand before the line, opening arms, inviting certain death, resign to taking beautiful breath and live. Did you ever have a list? |
| Maneuvers I watch your maneuvers, study close your steps through grass and bramble, bumble behind, trying not to stumble, but this pack is heavy, this uniform hot, my body laden with unnatural weight. I place my boot in your print before me, follow your gray lead and pray to God I can trust you. |
| "I awoke to the smell of wickedness in the world." |
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| I peer in the maw of the cannon: opaque icy empty. Your words come to mind. |
| Hand-to-Hand Did you think I want you to suffer? Did you think I ache to spread this pain? Did you think I merely vie for reaction? Think again. |
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| Casualties of War for B.D.S "Character is like a tree, and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is; the tree is the real thing." --Abraham Lincoln In the conservative shadow of trees and beyond the camp boundaries, from behind your own masked war, I still hear you ask, "Who do you think I am?" And I, as carefully as I can, squint through the settling evening clouded with fear and what we believe in, try to examine your dress, your look, suppressed, stonewalled, expressionless. I am abscessed, war-wounded with thought, needing to rest from pain, blinded from these trails of endless gray, from this march, a ceaseless succession of ignorance, from the fatigue of guessing-- and you, a stranger who asks but will not tell, fall victim to my private hell: your question taunts each battle injury, and I mistake you for my enemy. |
| Using material from this page: If you have reached this page, it is most likely because we are friends, colleagues and/or associates. However, if we have not met, thank you for visiting. "Poems from the Battlefield" truly IS a work in progress. Almost daily, I look at the pieces and think, "What if.....?" So be aware that these pages will change again and again, and what you see here today might be different tomorrow (for better or for worse, slightly or drastically). Poetry is an art form that I have practiced since childhood. For me, writing poetry is a way to synthesize elements of beauty, experience, history, philosophy, art, emotion and more, some of which are difficult for me to express verbally. There is something mystical about written words--they take on a life of their own when on a page--they sound differently, they are stronger and more beautiful, and for those of us who are not eloquent or comfortable speakers, writing, especially artistic writing, provides a mode of communication and an outlet for what would otherwise be just "noise in the head." The poems and photography here illustrate a spiritual and philosophical journey--they are not meant to historically document actual events of the Civil War, interpret historical markers, represent specific people or accurately relay happenings; poems (in general) should not be taken literally, and I am not a historian (though history, of course, fascinates me in the same way art, literature, social sciences, etc. do). These poems are written from imagined perspectives (a common poetic device) and are meant to communicate universal themes just as relevant today as those of the Civil War period. When you read these poems, ask yourself, "Who is the soldier in this poem, and what is the war about?" These are not new themes--they remind us that human beings are all connected through time and space, and when one of us hurts, we all hurt. When one of us is brave, we all are brave. And there can never be enough heroes. Many of these same themes can be found in Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, one of the first poetically written Naturalist novels of the time. Some poetic styles here resemble Crane's "War is Kind," while others take on qualities of specific forms such as the Haiku, triolet, and sonnet. (Poetry information courtesy of www.sol-magazine.org) You will find references to Civil War clothing, uniforms, culture, etc. Remember, though, that any references found in the poems are merely artistic interpretations, and as such, incorporate figures of speech, imagery, and imagination. (To "get" some of these references, see the Civil War link here, and to learn how to read poetry, see this link.) And if any of these poems causes you to think about something in a different way, a way you had not considered previously, then you did "get it." --Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt |
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| I prefer to remember that morning, the sun burnishing trees, wreath of light about your head, your face a Christmas I had not seen since before we went to war. |
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| Delayed Reaction Even now, I cannot let go, cast off that beaten memory, the one that carries the belt, the white, flannel shirt, the serpentine smirk. I try to make sense of it, try to analyze, intellectualize, but it will not subside, my unforgiving mind's eye recalling fatty fingers roping throat, the pulse of sub-animal seething, the words no human should use, the stillness of true terror, and the deathless wish you would be gone. |
| Spectator Sport "A time comes when silence is betrayal." --Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. There were those who thrived on war, lions tired of their plains and jungles, slaking life from the mere whiff of an army, the heady challenge of overcoming not just the physical forces, but better still, the advancing, unrelenting aesthetics that spurred them into an ire; for months, we spied on their perilous padding across our fields crushed flat, tracts of mud collecting between their claws, carrying their tails and anger behind them. And we sat there silent and watched. We watched them furrow ferocity, swallow and store it in their deep, natural wells, carry it sloshing around in their rounded bellies, testicles slapping sides of their thighs, menacing growl of certain attack, the fanged wonton of animals grinning for kill. And we in our holes and hovels and homes peeked through our filthy curtains, hid behind the creaky dry boards of our antique homes, winced at the warning rumble we knew would lead to nothing but death. We crouched beneath sills and those sounds, sniffed the air for the smell of scorching, secretly scanning the field from our vantages, submerged in foray--but safe. Our silence screamed louder than the victims that followed, the spill of body and heart and artillery on our neat fences and farms, the kind of dying we believed would only happen in hell. We bit our tongues and we waited, drawing the blood from our only hope, sucking it in and down back into ourselves, hiding it in the back of our hearts, so when later we reflected, we could do nothing more than descend to the floor, force our foreheads into hot hands, rub our eyes out blind with our palms, listen to pleading whispers that would never again abandon our ears, draw our patched knees to our shoulders, and rock to the rhythm of shame. |
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| I Am At War With my Body In the darkness of paralyzed dawn, I am at war with my body. Fingers and knees creaky as cannon wheels, thighs and feet cemented monuments to today's great battle and whatever may come from the North, I am at war with my body. Back and bottom barely covered by the last bits of this horsehair blanket, spine a remnant of yesterday's burdens, stiff as the will of my General, bruised as the shoulders of slaves, I am at war with my body. Each second pressing me closer to earth, winter earth under my pillow, this earth of my fathers and mothers, petrified clay beneath my head, a rough corpse supposing to offer me rest but really it grabs at my dreams with its cruelest fingers, lets me rest long enough to know its intentions, releasing only when I wake up. I am at war with my body. In pitiless morning more dark with my dread than any barrel I've looked down into, any soot I have ever swallowed, and any eyes that have ever lied about the glory of war, I am at war with my body. More, my mouth can't move to say. I am at war with my body. And so I start the day. |