(For Specialist Mike Moriarty, Rahim Al Haj and all the Joes and Jills and all the Hadjis. This poem is inspired in part by the documentary film The War Tapes, which everyone should see.)
Somewhere back in gradeschool they taught us to sing this one:
Over hill over dale
we have hit that dusty trail—
call out your numbers loud and strong—
for it's hi hi hee
in the field artillery
as our caissons go rolling along
They handed us cameras
and all the tapes
our National Guard asses
could hump
off to war
I suppose they
thought
it could be
one way to see
if a bit of that story
all its honor and glory
could come
back home
like us
But now it seems sort of like
Gunga Din or The Man Who Would Be King—and less like Saving Private Ryan,
Like dying Sean Connery bellowing "The Minstrel Boy"
or Rudyard Kipling's dusty old war songs that no real soldier ever sings:
On the Road to Mandalay
Where the flyin' fishes play
An' the dawn comes up like thunder
Outer China 'crost the bay
Well, what I would tell you
if I ever could tell you
is
that
it's no home movie—
never a story you'd want to see again
but you do
meet
exotic people
in those foreign lands
and you do
get to kill them
just like that awful old joke
always goes
you really do
This strange war-love
who I loved
so well
is the one I left behind
with her burst bloodied head rolling free
just behind me
in the thirsty Arab street
you see,
she crossed blind
stepped out in silent faith
untouched by any hand
where she could never hear or see
our camoflaged Humvee
racing at her
that Baghdad Friday night
in the murky blacked out Muslim desert dusk
—warm wind blowing all the wrong way—
in her full body wrap of dark modest cloth
we bumped her blunt
heavy metal thump
and she felt then our presence
the sudden sound of our armored Yankee strength
the heft of our American imperial sway
she gave way—
gave it all up—
willingly,
her sweet hadji soul—
in shock and awe—
Just like Rumsfeld, Condi, Bush and all them officers and big shots say
An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,
An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:
Bloomin' idol made o'mud—
Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd—
Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stood!
O
my love
you were so beautiful,
like that Continental soldier
his glory queue
trailing over shoulder
your hair hung low
my love
god is great and god is merciful
and therefore he let your poor wrecked flesh
and broke bones
be tossed
to his greater glory
that night
"JESUS CHRIST—We hit a woman!"
Against all good sense and contradicting strict orders
we stopped
dead
right there on that devil's highway
I slammed the roof with my gauntlet and the Sargeant howled
our driver hit his brakes
and I swiveled my M-60 round
and
sighted her down
but
the convoy never slowed—
straight ahead without honk or horn
ten eighteen wheelers in tight night formation
over her shaking body rolled—
in Iraq you got to go
where you got to go
and the way you go is never
slow
enough to let the hadjis aim
no headlights, just like us
but I saw them glide by
their double tires tore
her apart,
tossed parts here
and there
her soft hair some sorry raghead papa-san
retrieved from the curb
without one angry word
When the mist was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' slow,
She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing "Kulla-lo-lo!"
With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek agin' my cheek
We useter watch the steamers an' the "hathis" pilin' teak.
and then the wail began
god is great
god is good
and I made my triune cross
for her
for me
for all the rag headed
rag cloaked
jihadi souls lost in those scorpion sands,
and cursed crusaders doomed to drift
and never find Jerusalem
and all our poor bodies mashed together
in that barren Baghdad road
on a land we'll always misunderstand
in that blessed place of I E Ds
where I caught
this lousy shrapnel in my knees:
There!
I prayed.
So.
Back home I've hugged the kids
wife
mom
and watched some tv
but they'll send me out again
before I start to try to stop remembering when
I had so much to forget
and her face that
they wrapped in holy hadji rags
it isn't our fault
and never was
and all our fault
is what it always
will be
and I'll love her till the day I die
Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there ain't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst,
For the temple bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be—
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea
fucking thing about it was
we were just guarding a load of cheese
—you believe that?—
and burgers
for our people
so they wouldn't feel
so hungry
missing Mickey Dee's
so far,
far from home
and now when I dream
I dream some old forgotten soldier's song
and I don't know when I learned it
where or why
On the road to Mandalay
where the flyin' fishes play
come you back you [lonely] soldier
come you back to Mandalay
***