“Literature of War: At Home and Abroad” is the best issue we’ve published. It is also the most challenging issue we’ve published.
Issue 6
Literature of War: At Home and Abroad
Front Matter
Staff
Tim Lepczyk: Publisher and Poetry Editor
Mark Barr: Fiction Editor
Zoe Calhoun: Editorial Assistant
Daniel Grear: Editorial Assistant
Fiction
A Brief History of the Universe
She came with another female soldier on a sunny afternoon. It was Saturday and I was on the ladder, cleaning the leaves out of the second-story gutters.
A Final Goodbye
“Be vigilant, C.” Pulanski yelled over the sound of the gunfire. “I’ll see you on the other side.”
Convoy Operations
Vehicle is approaching from rear on the left, friendly forces. Passes, takes lead position in convoy. We fall in behind and set proper interval for this portion of the Main Supply Route – MSR Knight.
Submission
Jeannie wished Walker would share his thoughts more. He’d abandoned college teaching. He didn’t write, didn’t even read. Why? He said Socrates hadn’t read or written anything, Jesus either, and Homer was blind, though hardly illiterate. Since Walker wasn’t Socrates, Jesus, or Homer, Jeannie struggled to see the relevance.
The Dog Tag
Jim now wore the dog tag he had given his mother after returning from his first deployment. He wore the standard metal-beaded chain around his neck, but the tag itself was atypical.
This Wasn’t Supposed to Happen
We were the infantry, the sons of Odin, the winged gods of war fighting for freedom and the American way of life. Now we’re dying in the streets of America. We survived war; it was the peace that killed us.
Poetry
A Mother’s Hope
My hero will return
to bear hugs,
to warm kisses.
Arlington West in Santa Barbara
Sunday morning
light glides
beneath hem of fog
Bomb Lake
Two Taliban brothers huddle in a hand-scraped trench. They fire pot shots
at a passing convoy of eight trucks, plated and squat armadillos. The bullets
Closure
It is not about the stars
nor the sadness
in a constellation.
Co-ed Infantry
Not conscripted or coerced
all willing players in a nation’s force.
Flashback
I see tractor-trailer tires rumbling
over the khaki-tan carcass of a deer—
From the Cradle
Eighteen years old and off to war;
my mother broke in the idea
Hanging Gardens
I write about Iraq
when her skin was
carmine, perfumed with
freshly picked celosias
Human Terrain
The proper translation
isn’t All is vanity though
such is found everywhere—
I Am Nothing and Neither
I am brittle when the day springs.
My anchored tongue of aged iron
tastes of brown rust. It rests
Iraq Reflection
WMDs? No but
RPGs, bullets,
Iraqi Army Unit on Camp Striker, Baghdad Iraq
Their colonel met our colonel inside
the TOC to build
a partnership.
It Went On
It went on, they said.
The road to Baghdad,
The one you saw on the news
With the abandoned cars.
leaving empty
Two Buddhas once stood like giants
in the Afghan province of Bamiyan
until the Taliban blasted them down.
Letters Home
WI sends names to war
letters bleed
our voices cinch at home
Meditations of a Sniper
They sent me up this tower three days ago,
Just my rifle, rations, and a radio.
My Discussion with Sergeant Brian Turner, 3BCT/2ID
I didn’t read Here, Bullet.
I saw the movie.
My Marine My Grandson
A rupture in the how-it-was-to-be:
not for any child through me,
we haven’t had a soldier
since the Civil War.
New Ways to War
Let’s count coup instead of kill, just a touch,
or sneak into enemy camps, capture a prized
horse, okay, maybe a Hummer can count.
Non-Combat Related Incidents and Other Lies
There was no ballad
for you in Balad, no
eulogy tending your ears
Private
Whether it’s my spit-polished boots, the crease
In my trouser, the belt buckle shine, the helmet
Still unscuffed,
Shopping in Kabul, 2002
We felt like The Beatles
slinging rifles, not guitars.
Kids mobbed us. We moved.
They moved —
Special Forces
We walked together into the darkness
Of an undisclosed location.
The Long Struggle
The terrible and restless quiet
that preceded the thick wild smoke
and the toppling Jenga tower.
Nonfiction
Fine Dirt and Dead Birds
A dirty brown dove sits on the small ledge created by the hightop Chevy’s box. It just sits there, looking around wildly.
Back Matter
IndieGoGo Supporters
This spring we raised $346 from our IndieGoGo campaign. As special thanks to those who contributed, we’d like to acknowledge their support. You all came through in a major way and it’s helped defray the costs of the journal.