The War That Waits

[fluorescent.43]

Went to war with freedom
fizzing hot on my lips, bright and
blue like Afghanistan clouds

My legs itch to move
but there's nothing to do except
look at pale orange desert

(Watch it drain away
into machine-gun clicks)

I see no dead people. Nightmares
don't haunt my bed; neither do dreams.
I don't get to see a war-torn
village of laughing children sink
into graying sand

But thoughts of legless, mindless
veterans returning to a freezer-cold
homeland of rusted pennies and drugged streets
penetrate my flesh

I won't be one of them.
My child's smile decorates my eyes
My wife's scent permeates my skin
Our white picket-fence home sits in my head,
an apple tree just out of reach

-As if I could ever keep
the American dream alive
here in this hot land of green mountains
and fractured sand and crying children
and metal dryer than bone

Behind bulletproof windows,
I have too much time to think.

[MattVoscinar]

Went to war with freedom
fizzing hot on my lips, bright and
blue like Afghanistan clouds

1) The enjambment in the first/second line are perfectly executed. “war with freedom” and “the war with freedom fizzing” reading caught me immediately. Well done.

2) Simile fits well with the topic.


My legs itch to move
but there's nothing to do except
look at pale orange desert

(Watch it drain away
into machine-gun clicks)

1) This is incredibly nitpicky, but I’m not sure if I like the verb “drain” here. That conjures up thoughts of fluids, while the machine-gun clicks force me to hear harsh, dry noise. I might suggest “ticks” if you cannot think of a better one.

I see no dead people. Nightmares
don't haunt my bed; neither do dreams.
I don't get to see a war-torn
village of laughing children sink
into graying sand

1) Personally, I think you can do without the last three lines of this stanza. From the other imagery, the reader can infer that the speaker is not seeing violent scenery. Just mentioning them goes against the tone you've established.

But thoughts of legless, mindless
veterans returning to a freezer-cold
homeland of rusted pennies and drugged streets
penetrate my flesh

I won't be one of them.
My child's smile decorates my eyes
My wife's scent permeates my skin
Our white picket-fence home sits in my head,
an apple tree just out of reach

1) I suggest removing the child/wife lines and focusing entirely on the apple tree image. The contrast between this and the barren landscape of Afghanistan is the most powerful part of this poem thus far.

-As if I could ever keep
the American dream alive
here in this hot land of green mountains
and fractured sand and crying children
and metal dryer than bone

Behind bulletproof windows,
I have too much time to think.

While I like the turn of bulletproof windows because it can bring up questions about the speaker, I think removing these two lines altogether would be fantastic. You work very well with imagery in this poem and ending it on the metal dryer than bone line would give much more emphasis to it (though I may be biased because your snapshots are my favorite parts.)

You’ve done a wonderful job getting inside the head of someone in war, and you’ve done things that take a drastic step away from expectations. While most writers would fall into the trap of describing the grotesque, you went in the opposite direction. You ran through the theme almost seamlessly and created in internal dialogue about foreign affairs and engagements, peace, and what war looks like to those in it, at least in my mind. Well done.