I named a son after you, &
Though you died in Kansas during cruel April
& I was in Oregon, but I was there with you a
Long time..I have no idea what kind
Of funeral you had—or even if you had one
The brother of my mother, your wife
My Uncle, told me that spring, during a
Drive in the station wagon where he could
Deliver bad news without looking at me,
I’d had these trips before, had some after, but I was
In my 20s when I figured out they’d
Kidnapped me from you—it may be that he hated you, however
His Father my Grandfather always had something good to
Say about you & you know he visited you when he went back
To Kansas, my Uncle with pride and perhaps a little senility showed me
A letter in 1974, but written in 1963,
Threatening a law suit if you came out to get me, the Uncle thought
that would demonstrate how much they loved me—but it was always
I waited for you to drive up in that ’56 Buick & thought of how I would pile in
& we would drive all the way back to the flat land with all the windows down!
The uncle told me many times when wanting to correct my behavior
That he’d send me, ‘back to your father,’ oh please know I always wanted to go!
That day in the ’53 Ford Station wagon, about a quarter mile from
Where the dirt road to our farm met the pavement & then south on
Highway 62 toward Eagle Point, he began to tell me that you had died,
The story had been that you were coming to get me
In about six months—& that had been six years, & you called twice,
Wrote three times, sent me a pocket knife & a rattle snake rattle,
From a snake you’d killed in Nebraska, who knows what happened to the snake rattle,
I lost the knife in basic training in Fort Ord, California in 1967 when drill instructors
Yelling that any of us with knives would be court marshaled and sent to Ft. Leavenworth
You had told me at about 8 years old not to go in the Army
& to never work in the oil fields,
I took your advice about the Oil Fields, the Army had me
Four years I didn’t have to win any of the Medals you did
I did get a Good Conduct Medal and an honorable discharge
They did not send me to Vietnam while it raged and others went,
I often thought, that was a direct result of what you had to go through
& with noted exceptions, I’ve led a somewhat honorable life, when we got back from
The station wagon ride my grandfather told me that Winfield was
A little Kansas town where people could get away with murder,
& he did not believe the newspaper clipping my Uncle had shown me in 1964,
That having found your body in the river with a railroad iron tied on
The back of your belt—what an awkward thing to do! He, your father-in-law
Did not believe you committed suicide as the police said, in 1970 when I was back there
For the funeral of your other son Dennis my brother, & Lyle your good friend told me the same thing
& that none of your friends thought you’d gone by your own hand, largely because
You’d have shot yourself —they reasoned, “being and outdoor man—& seen the worst of WWII.”
Still you’d been down, my Grandfather
Commented on that the last time he saw you—you’d not been able to work in a while
Because of your back, you must know I had the same problem 3 back surgeries on the job
Lifting injuries & one bad car wreck, I made it through 25 years of pain & six years of
Addicting prescription drugs, that when I tried to cold turkey out of it made me
Humble and knowing I’d not have any thing over a common junkie, a year after
The last operation they stair stepped me off & that was 12 years ago, still I thought of you
& made it through, I’ve visited your grave twice, once when Dennis died &
Again when I had to deliver a 1963 Impala convertible to Wichita in 1983
I met your friend Bill Husky on an out of the blue phone call he made to me in 1996, &
A year later I went to meet him in Florida; he told me WWII & I’d always wondered
What you had done, then I knew there was some kind of miracle going on that
You made it back to make me, after D-Day plus 13 to Cologne, Husky& his other buddy that
Knew you said I looked like you, I had little Joe with me & they were happy to see
Me and said, unabashedly you were a hero, & they were damn lucky to serve with you,
& told some stories how there were 300 landing on that Norman beach & only 50 left at Cologne
So now I have to tell you the part about how it was, that I realized about that time
What was going on in my own life, as it relates to you death—I blamed myself for your death
I somehow thought from the time I was 13, that if I’d been there
I could have stopped it—or it would not have happened, I took that
Into my soul & packed it around with me like a ruck sack filled with cast iron skillets— for 32 years,
Took this darkness to the Army & to college & through two marriages & a bunch of what we now
Call relationships—all the time trying to drink like you, & smoke like you, hunt & fish like you,
with every awful injustice I knew of, I wanted to kill Nazi’s like you,
& then, I took it to God & He showed me it was not my fault
But instead— a lie whispered to me all those years ago, & the next day
Husky called telling me about you, & I knew this connected & was true &
Since then, most all of the drinking stopped
& well I’ve had my life back & good humored it is, I laugh a lot
Pretty sure I’ve raised two pretty good boys into men
& now have a wife that does all the ideal Betty Crocker things that somehow
Escaped us back in the 50s, except for my grandmother, who cooked
Cottontail rabbits you killed & made me bacon sandwiches & chocolate cake with white frosting,
You drank Jim Beam with Coca Cola chaser, & always brought a Coke for me
& me even tagging along
To your beer joints & the dusty Kansas humidity that I did not know was oppressive
& it all left me an orphan & now knowing how dysfunction
& PTSD are oppressive, but I have to tell
You that I, like Husky and his friend, never thought ever of you as anything but a hero,
I retired in Alaska then went south for the mild winters in California,
& six months before I left, you came to me in a dream
With your Humphrey Bogart fedora hat & leather jacket
& picked me up in amongst a pile of old boats & we both went on a journey
south without the Buick, across the sound, & a road, & the sunset
& I walked just a little behind you.
Month: May 2014
In the Spring When Kings Go out to Battle
Battle is all I know
& I count myself dead
Beginning with each war
There is no other way
There is no wife &
There is no life &
I must end life that comes forward to me.
War is not a backward motion
I never knew
That I knew
But I knew perfectly
When my company of men pulled away..
I was always ready to die for this King
For I am one of his 40 mighty men!
& I, a foreigner, a Hittite, as is my wife
Our grandparent’s grandparents settled in with
These Hebrews who treated us well, & many of us
Like myself & my wife became proselytes
Their faith now mine, is now mine own battle dress
Today is no different—except today I know
Just as these dogs are before me— I will die..
But not before this one who charges out of the
Throng, & oh how I love spilling his blood, & cleaving
Half through his neck & chest— he never saw it..
Now they see me ready again,
“Who is next of you— dogs? Who of your slime is next?
He brought me out of battle! Battle!
This is shame! To leave battle,
I know of no other guilt I could be guilty of
& not ask for forgiveness from this their mighty God
Because it is so vile and shameful! To leave battle?
I, Uriah the Hittite shirked no battle afraid of no foe?
To leave battle? Sent from battle like some load bearer,
Smelled fine food and his perfume in his palace
But not my brothers sweat!
What could be the reason?—this King is my life?
When each war ends, but not until it ends
Until then My life— is always Battle!
War when it begins is a linear series of horrific acts
Each death an immoral, yet honorable action until war ends.
This one is not over; we could lose, the battle King
Could lose, simply because he is not here
That men would rally to his standard as the standard of the Almighty
My queen death by my right and left
Hand is the end purpose of my blood!
I sacrifice a lamb for every man I kill.
He set me before table of feast & wine
Then bade me go to my wife? To my wife?
When it is my oath to kill the dogs set before me
& there they remain and my brothers without me at their side?
That is all I could fathom.. I slept at his door & never saw my wife.
Heh, you, you Ammonite scum, die as you run to me! I know your slime
Ridden brothers will soon bring your archers to bear
Until then, this is two of your Hundreds
That taunt, dead & the blood still spilling out of that one now,
His tunic floating red now..
“I want more of you, like a hungry man wants his dinner!”
Three are running toward me now, one to the right, he will
Make a flanking move, the others come straight forward with
Lances, I will kill them all with these moves the Most High
Has given me, we 40 men were schooled in the difference between
Killing and murder—I am a killer. It is so. Yet I have never murdered.
But he the King? Why does he murder me? I thought Joab could never do this
Had it not been bidden by the King
I carried the message that ordered this treachery—I saw it on Joab’s face
My brothers would never do this, Joab placed me with
Young men, first time in battle & when they withdrew on orders
As I led the charge and these dogs quartered in and have
Boxed me on this rocky field I saw them Leave in tight formation
—the King was angered
When I refused to go to my wife
Perhaps he slept with my wife & brought me
Home to assuage this guilt? Yet I cannot believe that.
Did he not know that the most shame I could bare
Fiends take my wife who bathed on the roof below the Kings’ window
I joked about the King seeing her private parts!
Perhaps that was my sin, perhaps she will foal Hebrew blood and connect
To a lineage unknown to me, there is more than war, I know now that
This is the day I die, I would want nothing but warriors for sons,
Still.. was leaving my brothers in arms for his table a thing he thought I could bear?
Ah, but those days he commanded us in the field!
I would follow him anywhere and do his bidding
No matter the course, so I left battle hoping to be
Assigned a particularly dangerous duty..
Oh! How, I love to side-step a shield & with a feinting move
This flanking bastard coming close will soon die & while these two get to see me jump!
Up so my sword can kill from the height of his shoulder
I plunge it straight down with the quick stab which parallels down the neck
Passing through clavicle quickly & down quickly down..
Down into the vitals & as I come back to earth tipping the living falling corpse back he falls
The air leaves him & my sword is out and now & as he topples—I kill the other two!
The look on his face when I left the ground is still in my mind
As I now smell them all bleeding—& it is strange that now I wish the King was watching.
“I, Uriah the Hittite Servant of King David—of his 40 mighty men will go to my
Death with joy this day—as a warrior I’ve never looked for rescue!”
My brothers backed off leaving me cut off & the wall over there..
I’ve known since I was dispatched from the King
Some one thing was wrong, & if it be betrayal—so be it.
That I’ve fought valiantly for this King no one will ever deny
This has been my great joy when it was I knew he
Voiced daily with Almighty, I’d seen him as a youth
When he’d put down that ungodly beast behemoth Goliath
Stinking philistine that he was—I admit it I could not fathom it
Yet I saw it, I saw it at 18 and he was 15, & he killed him
With stone from his sling, dead, in the dirt
The giant that smelled of excrement & ate raw meat
& entrails unclean & putrid & gargantuan as he was—he bloated in half a day
David cut off his head with the Giant’s own sword!
Oh how we rejoiced seeing the Philistine dogs run after this &
When I heard that the prophet named David the anointed of
The Almighty I knew of no other thing I could do
But serve him— David, and shortly swore my allegiance
To him and only him, that my old uncle
Betrayed him, & his traitor son who infuriated me, & when I
Saw Absalom dead my heart swelled with the joy
The justice of it, yet I saw my King weep & grieve
As if he’d lost an infant child, I thought him
Beyond human with tenderness that day
I, Uriah the fierce Hittite was moved by
His loss and his ability to love
Now I see that they are
Sending five at me… Ha! I give it to these dogs they
Have not brought archers nor javelins to bear even now & will
Try showing themselves men! Ha! I’ll kill these five!
I’m now leaking red blood & that was a little harder
Than I thought—my age? I’ll have no gray hair after this day!
Ha! This Day of my death, no old man tottering before a grave for me!
I am a warrior & death has always been my mistress.
That keeps me true to my wife!
I’ve always been true but now there are
Other arms of Sheol reaching to receive me —I go there with honor!
If there is resurrection as some of these Hebrews believe,
I desire to march straight for it.
But not before I taunt them more, “Dogs! come spill some more of your
Entrails that I Uriah will make you whore mothers weep! Dogs that
Defy the Mighty one of Israel! Come die with me today so you
Will see Sheol and bark for even dark mercy!”
These Hebrews taught me Job & He Who is Mighty
Test men—I’ll be true to this test
Ha! & now I see the archers being placed, & a phalanx of
Infantry to take my arrowed corpse, Ha! Today I die!
The morning sky is red, & a hot wind blows in my face,
My doom is this day will not steal my joy of this
My final battle—a wrong done against me never-the-less
Through a cause of which I’ll never know here.. yet I smell Hyssop
I smell olive oil, I smell savory, and Basil, and Aloe
Their clang of armor sounds paltry,
Now I’m hearing distant symbols, tambourines & trumpets
Bah! I throw down my shield & pick up a lance!
In thirty feet the archers will have to shoot round their infantry
I will charge them!
He has some reason not privy to me, & so as said Job
& now I charge them! & I’m yelling:
“Even though He slay me, yet I will praise Him!”
Poems & Stories by James Ross Kelly-- 