NV on Spring Ex
Dec 12, 2008
You own the night. Green grain of prairie
light through thermal scope. Cross-haired,
from the LAV’s hot eyeball sockets, stare;
you, your gunner in his turret, joystick right
to left, right to left, right to left, site cleft,
seams, breasts of earth’s unsleeping body.
Your NVGs, your thermals, alert to heat
of thing and flesh, to this war, soft on Ex
razor-rock sharp on desert, four months out;
this war that slithers, creeps, its skin glassy
bright as ice in drinks, the Xmas baubles,
the wood and brass of the officers’ mess
after the Men’s Dinner, the troops dismissed,
back at garrison, a billion light years passed.
3 Comments (Closed)
I liked “joystick right to left, right to left, right to left, site cleft,
seams, breasts of earth’s unsleeping body…”
You are learning a whole new three-dimensional geography, aren’t you?
It’s fascinating to see what seem to be diametrically opposed spheres come to gether (typo: I guess that word comes from “to gather”): Military, manly manoeuvres meet sensitive, subterranean insights.
Both spheres use night-vision, but they focus on different dimensions.About This Page
The page you're reading contains a single diary entry entitled NV on Spring Ex. It was posted here on December 12, 2008.
Ariel Gordon
Oh, sms, these lines nearly did me in:
“its skin glassy
bright as ice in drinks”
A.
Dec 12 2008 · 09:42