An Old Kind of Mad
Here we sit
In the story room
The war one
that finally bricked you
into your tomb
We heard the same lines
Commanding, demanding
From the island Some-Where,
whose walls rumbled
and crumbled down
on our tight-lipped dust
we held our ground
as a captive audience of none
First it was your legs
That were too feeble
Folded up and put away
A narrative of a captive
In a wheelchair
That yielded and wheeled
armed to your lonesome teeth
with nightie-nights
on your station bedside
I knew your once-whistle
so brilliantly airtight
like when you played greener golf
Or cleaned a scrimshaw pipe
And now,
There’s no tune
Just tones from a blowhard
That’s an old
kind of mad
An old mad
And a mad kind of old
Told and retold
We are the sign-ins that hear
We are the sign-outs that tear
And sink lower each time
then re-hear
One hundred versions
Of quicksand
Of Korean combat
The over and over of it
Each hour, each year
until it pools overseas
And drowns in
one last stand
on your vet hat
It was on Wednesday
Or at lunch
Where a table for four
Had a stroke, then a fall,
or never woke
One by one by one
Outgrew their plans for dinner
Left only me
Leaning on a ghost
Besides the table legs
Looking at “Empty Plates,”
Volume VIII,
Of how to be a soldier
And fatherless
You pointed
With a hard finger
To each rule that worked
that century
for you but became for us a
Recipe for disaster
a room without a view
and a view without any room
to breathe or move
This was a one-armed conflict
a wounded lesson
left on the battlefield
beyond
and the earth below
where stories
no longer make a sound
but wheels go round and round
head south by
Some-Where north
We say goodbye
To a hand that called the shots
And no longer waves
back and forth,
back and forth,
and back and forth.
Jeff Bender is a writer/artist who writes about life and has a life that is about his art. While the two skills often intersect, both reflect a zeal for the spontaneous, the curious and most things that are breathing. Always supplementing his stories with constructions and collages, his artwork is held in collections both public and private, both regionally and internationally. He holds an MFA in printmaking from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and a BA in Art from the College of Wooster. Web: Jeffmbender.com Podcast: Knee Deep