The Plexiglas Flyer

Inspired by truth and fiction, as told in Catch 22 and the real-life events of my friends in the military. In the end, all truth...

Rain fell on the dialysis machine in the

Army tent by the long dry creek bed

where my Army buddies often took their whores,

long lashes no longer batting caught in the gunk of

too much muddy makeup,

The soldiers loving every minute of it

as their girls watched them live

their fantasies on top,

neither never able to look away,

despite the stones and the dust,

where a half-Italian boy was both a

fisherman and born,

The sound of hammers in the rain

replacing the heavy artillery on the bombers

now limping their way home

carefree of the burdens of war,

my Army buddies laugh when someone

drives a nail and tells a joke,

forgetting the way they cried

to the empty caskets of the ones no one will ever see again,

like the whores whose dilapidated brothel was

smothered under the thumb of a brave bombardier

scared enough to never forget what lies below,

insane enough to do what he was told,

Forgetting the dry creek bed

that echoes with the sound of once unbaked rocks

and foreign love that seemed real

replaced with the nagging of a hammer

that has struggled unrelenting to

keep the rain off of the dialysis machine.

6.10.05