New Poetry by Ben White: “Cold” and “Cold II”

JUST SPILLED FUEL / image by Amalie Flynn

 

Cold

In the tracks
The heaters never worked –
They just spilled fuel
All over our gear,
PUUUUUUUUSo, winter maneuvers
Were saturated
With the depressing smell
Of diesel
That put the cold
PUUUUUUUUIn the Cold War.

 

Cold II

We didn’t have the chance
To become
Household heroes
As the battlefield games
PUUUUUUUUWere played out
In Cold War villages
With routine maneuvers,
So we weren’t individualized
Into a series
PUUUUUUUUOf celebrated
PUUUUUUUUAction figures –

We just stayed molded
Out of plastic –
PUUUUUUUUGreen and generic,

In the same
Old postures.

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."

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