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Contests : War Poetry Contest : Past Winners : 2003 : Chandra Toucher
WINTER MOON (A SOLDIER'S THOUGHTS)
I.
Winter moon,
I sleep under you tonight.
Such weak, white you shed.
I am incomplete, unfed.
I walk in half-bled light,
Mistrust my calloused sight.
Bitter, burned and insufficient,
I search out signs to find some depth.
Inert spirit, please proclaim time,
My name, what leavens shame (my daily bread).
How often do you find me here,
Underneath your sharpened shears
Hoping tourniquets will bleed out fear.
Honesty is a substance without a face.
My life, a race without reward.
Judged by some distant, insignificant
Board of faceless superiors, infringing
Upon my infinite interiors, leaving
Me gutted like a holiday gourd.
I sin silently, violently,
In purple disgust.
I must repent but I have already
Lent you all my disguises,
Biodegradable devices.
II.
Winter moon,
Where have you hidden June,
My warmth, my finite beliefs?
I cough out grief and dream of trains that
Ride rails in the dust, treading on
Steel and earthen crust.
Just let me drive on
Without doubt or drought.
Am I allowed to sit here tonight without
Speech? Teach me how bravery fights,
How winter bites and fire ignites a spirit
Dead in rotting leaves.
This will not cease nor bend.
Death condescends and outlines its
Territory in bright chalk.
III.
Winter moon,
I have not bloomed.
I have not moved since you sat with me
My first sleepless night.
I, still, sit unprepared, waiting for the
Secrets of dawn but addictive yawns
Lay me down before light rises,
Before the skyline opens arms and
Colored yarns.
I know the emptiness in humanness
But cannot escape, raped by false
Proclamations, integrations and fallen
Nations. I play victim and murderer.
I wear honesty and lie in its philosophy.
I buy justice and sell it.
I shout hope from mountains and
Slide in doubt to low valleys, raise
Rallies of truth and disguise my sentences.
I am a menace to my own person who
Shuns mirrors, absolutes, no longer resolute.
I had dreams and roots that grew deep
In fertile ground but the sound of gold
Is now silence and I am blinded, grinded
Past simplicity and the ability to serve.
IV.
Winter moon,
Your eyes watch sleeping spirits
And ingrown disgust of lust.
You guard planets of guiltless regard.
I store up pain on checkerboards
Of ingrained solitude and planned
Moods to please perfectionism.
I will never satisfy the hungry lion.
Marrow and bone, blood and stone
Cannot contend with eternity,
(The burned hole in me) that may
Never be fully filled.
I do not want to lose dignity.
I clench pride in fists—tight
That hold fault, the insult
Of salvation, planned creation
And creed.
I want to believe, abide by what
Has been decreed but only bear
Shallow, body-rust.
I justify days by hours
Night by eyes
Myself by dust.
V.
Winter moon,
My silenced habitat,
Ordained niche.
Hear my cry,
Swollen lullaby.
Turn not from empty palms.
Unleash your stars,
Sharded boulevards in a
Firework galaxy.
Release to me why I still breathe—barely,
While cities tumble and men cry shame.
Plagiarize just half your light to remind
Me that I am alive.
Be a friend that does not soak secrets
Just to pour out revenge.
Care to stare longer than a lover would.
Be stronger than wood,
Steel guns, bronzed freedom.
Wave longer than flag's memorials and
Do not let day come
Until I understand
The demand
Of humanness.
This poem was a finalist in the 2003 War Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers. Copyright is reserved to the author.
About Chandra Toucher
Chandra Toucher has been writing poetry since she can remember. She graduated with a BA in English, during which time she completed a 60-page manuscript entitled Darkroom Woman. Her work has been published in The Paragon Review (Colorado, 2001), and she is in the process of returning to school for her MFA. She would like to share this quote from Rainer Maria Rilke:
Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must," then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.
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