Each month I post a poem from a notebook filled with poems that are most important to me. Here is another poem that profoundly influenced my writing. I love how this poem creates the awkward intimacy between enemies. The portrayal of the invading soldier is almost erotic; he is suddenly more human than we expect him to be. What struck me most is the sense of fraternity that is depicted in the poem's last two lines, a fraternity that blooms not from nationalistic values, but rather from simply being men, at war and suffering.
Sappers by Yusef Komunyakaa
Opium, horse, nothing
sends anybody through concertina
this way. What is it in the brain
that so totally propels a man?
Caught with women in our heads
three hours before daybreak,
we fire full automatic
but they keep coming,
slinging satchel charges
at our bunkers. They fall
and rise again like torchbearers,
with their naked bodies greased
so moon-light dances
off their skin. They run
with explosives strapped
around their waists,
and try to fling themselves
into our arms.
I was in a workshop he taught at I.U. several years ago. He was an interesting man.
ReplyDeleteNice post.