We're moving into year seven of our war with Iraq. I haven't cared for most of the Iraq war movies that have come out even when I agreed with the film's politics. The Hurt Locker is different. It's a suspenseful and well-told story that gets down to the human level and engages you with the characters. I loved it. I came across a poem last night by Brian Turner that shares the same title as the film. Ironically, I was scanning the titles of various poetry collections, studying how others title their work, because I have such a hard time coming up with good titles.
The Hurt Locker
Nothing but hurt left here.
Nothing but bullets and pain
and the bled-out slumping
and all the fucks and goddamns
and Jesus Christs of the wounded.
Nothing left here but the hurt.
Believe it when you see it.
Believe it when a twelve-year-old
rolls a grenade into the room.
Or when a sniper punches a hole
deep into someone's skull.
Believe it when four men
step from a taxicab in Mosul
to shower the street in brass
and fire. Open the hurt locker
and see what there is of knives
and teeth. Open the hurt locker and learn
how rough men come hunting for souls.
--from Here, Bullet, copyright 2005 by Brian Turner
Showing posts with label Brian Turner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brian Turner. Show all posts
War Poems
Hard to believe it's been six years since the fall of Baghdad, but Democracy Now reports that on this anniversary of the fall, tens of thousands of Iraqis gathered to protest our continued occupation in that country.
Here are two poems inspired by war, one by Yusef Komunyakaa and the other by Brian Turner. Komunyakaa, a Pulitzer Prize winner, served in the Vietnam War. Brian Turner earned an MFA from University of Oregon before serving in Bosnia and Iraq.
Hanoi Hannah
Ray Charles! His voice
calls from waist-high grass,
& we duck behind gray sandbags.
"Hello, Soul Brothers. Yeah,
Georgia's also on my mind."
Flares bloom over the trees.
"Here's Hannah again.
Let's see if we can't
light her goddamn fuse
this time." Artillery
shells carve a white arc
against dusk. Her voice rises
from a hedgerow on our left.
"It's Saturday night in the States.
Guess what your woman's doing tonight.
I think I'll let Tina Turner
tell you, you homesick GIs."
Howitzers buck like a herd
of horses behind concertina.
"You know you're dead men,
don't you? You're dead
as King today in Memphis.
Boys, you're surrounded by
General Tran Do's division."
Her knife-edge song cuts
deep as a sniper's bullet.
"Soul Brothers, what you dying for?"
We lay down a white-klieg
trail of tracers. Phantom jets
fan out over the trees.
Artillery fire zeros in.
Her voice grows flesh
& we can see her falling
into words, a bleeding flower
no one knows the true name for.
"You're lousy shots, GIs."
Her laughter floats up
as though the airways are
buried under our feet.
--taken from Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems by Yusef Komunyakaa (Wesleyan University Press: 1993)
What Every Soldier Should Know
To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will;
it is at best an act of prudence. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau
If you hear gunfire on a Thursday afternoon,
it could be for a wedding, or it could be for you.
Always enter a home with your right foot;
the left is for cemeteries and unclean places.
O-guf! Tera armeek is rarely useful.
It means Stop! Or I'll shoot.
Sabah el khair is effective.
It means Good Morning.
Inshallah means Allah be willing.
Listen well when it is spoken.
You will hear the RPG coming for you.
Not so the roadside bomb.
There are bombs under the overpasses,
in trashpiles, in bricks, in cars.
There are shopping carts with clothes soaked
in foogas,a sticky gel of homemade napalm.
Parachute bombs and artillery shells
sewn into the carcasses of dead farm animals.
Graffiti sprayed onto the overpasses:
I will kell you, American.
Men wearing vests rigged with explosives
walk up, raise their arms and say Inshallah.
There are men who earn eighty dollars
to attack you, five thousand to kill.
Small children who will play with you,
old men with their talk, women who offer chai--
and any one of them
may dance over your body tomorrow.
--taken from Here, Bullet by Brian Turner (Alice James Books: 2005)
Here are two poems inspired by war, one by Yusef Komunyakaa and the other by Brian Turner. Komunyakaa, a Pulitzer Prize winner, served in the Vietnam War. Brian Turner earned an MFA from University of Oregon before serving in Bosnia and Iraq.
Hanoi Hannah
Ray Charles! His voice
calls from waist-high grass,
& we duck behind gray sandbags.
"Hello, Soul Brothers. Yeah,
Georgia's also on my mind."
Flares bloom over the trees.
"Here's Hannah again.
Let's see if we can't
light her goddamn fuse
this time." Artillery
shells carve a white arc
against dusk. Her voice rises
from a hedgerow on our left.
"It's Saturday night in the States.
Guess what your woman's doing tonight.
I think I'll let Tina Turner
tell you, you homesick GIs."
Howitzers buck like a herd
of horses behind concertina.
"You know you're dead men,
don't you? You're dead
as King today in Memphis.
Boys, you're surrounded by
General Tran Do's division."
Her knife-edge song cuts
deep as a sniper's bullet.
"Soul Brothers, what you dying for?"
We lay down a white-klieg
trail of tracers. Phantom jets
fan out over the trees.
Artillery fire zeros in.
Her voice grows flesh
& we can see her falling
into words, a bleeding flower
no one knows the true name for.
"You're lousy shots, GIs."
Her laughter floats up
as though the airways are
buried under our feet.
--taken from Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems by Yusef Komunyakaa (Wesleyan University Press: 1993)
What Every Soldier Should Know
To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will;
it is at best an act of prudence. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau
If you hear gunfire on a Thursday afternoon,
it could be for a wedding, or it could be for you.
Always enter a home with your right foot;
the left is for cemeteries and unclean places.
O-guf! Tera armeek is rarely useful.
It means Stop! Or I'll shoot.
Sabah el khair is effective.
It means Good Morning.
Inshallah means Allah be willing.
Listen well when it is spoken.
You will hear the RPG coming for you.
Not so the roadside bomb.
There are bombs under the overpasses,
in trashpiles, in bricks, in cars.
There are shopping carts with clothes soaked
in foogas,a sticky gel of homemade napalm.
Parachute bombs and artillery shells
sewn into the carcasses of dead farm animals.
Graffiti sprayed onto the overpasses:
I will kell you, American.
Men wearing vests rigged with explosives
walk up, raise their arms and say Inshallah.
There are men who earn eighty dollars
to attack you, five thousand to kill.
Small children who will play with you,
old men with their talk, women who offer chai--
and any one of them
may dance over your body tomorrow.
--taken from Here, Bullet by Brian Turner (Alice James Books: 2005)
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