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Contests : War Poetry Contest : Past Winners : 2011 : Steven Sparks
THE VOYEUR EXPLODES
I shove my face inside your skin
and wear you like a balloon.
We lifted the top off of your Baghdad sky
only to find barrage balloons hung still
above the city like the swollen bodies
of medieval criminals.
We lifted you out of the spider
hole and checked your God hair
for lice—inventoried your Mars bars. We lounged
in your palace—the back half shorn off
like a mid-month moon—watched skinny
blonde girls on our laptops—balloons slipped
under the soft skin of their breasts. We sneaked
off to the balconies with half-filled Coca-Cola
cans, the Arabic letters unraveling into horsewhips,
mixed in Captain Morgan's smuggled inside Listerine
bottles—buzzed our way across the river—convinced
ourselves the tracer rounds were licorice.
When I get home, I'm gonna build a house with no windows.
This poem was a finalist in the 2011 War Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers. Copyright is reserved to the author.
About Steven Sparks
Steven Sparks separated from the United States Marine Corps in 2005 after 10 years of service in
the signals intelligence field. He served two tours in Iraq. He lives in York, PA with his wife,
two boys, and a dog.
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