New Poetry by Ben White: “Cleaning the M60 – 39 Years and January 26, 1984”

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TO FLESH BONE / image by Amalie Flynn

39 Years

The death
Of a soldier
Was an accident,
A waste –
PUT_CCCCCCA shame,
So the anniversary
Is nothing to celebrate –
PUT_CCCCCCOr forget

January 26, 1984

Back on the continent
At the 1st and 51st Infantry –
A battalion that doesn’t exist anymore –
The Cold War was fighting a strange peace
With weapons and tension
Wanting to release a dimension
PUT_CCCCCCOf battle prepared,
PUT_CCCCCCTrained for,
PUT_CCCCCCAnd ultimately expected
While volunteers selected
Stood ready in the West
And along the borders
PUT_CCCCCCAwaiting orders to mobilize
When one cold January,
Thursday morning
Soldiers had to realize
The power of 7.62 mm ammo
Tumbling into the chest
PUT_CCCCCCOf a brother in the band
With manslaughter unplanned
And wounds giving the medics
An ambulance to ride in
PUT_CCCCCCUntil the doctors
PUT_CCCCCCAt the Krankenhaus
Opened up the chest
And showed them what
One M60 round
PUT_CCCCCCCan do
To flesh,
Bone, and what
A few minutes ago
Had been functioning,
PUT_CCCCCCDistinguishable organs.

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Ben White

"When Ben White was serving his 22-year military career (in the Army and the Coast Guard) and then again while earning his MFA from the University of Tampa, He thought he was a poet. But Ben is not a poet - he is a witness. What he writes is testimony. Along with various poems in various journals and anthologies, he is the author of The Recon Trilogy +1 and Always Ready: Poems from a Life in the United States Coast Guard."

2 Comments
  1. It is reassuring to know your work stands up 40 years later.
    I know because nothing has made me feel better than to know
    my first published short fiction, “Old Loggerhead” in 1974
    was republished last year. Keep the faith, Ben.

    Best,
    Gerry Winter

  2. Gerry – the event happened 40 years ago (26Jan84) – but these poems are new reflections of the morning…Not a good day at the 1st and 51st Infantry…
    Ben!

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