Afghanistan in Moonlight
By: John Wolf
Movement smothered in shadows,
calculated positions adjusted in turn.
All is quiet; muffled voices fade.
Too much white moon light,
they wait, crouched, tense.
The night is clear and cold.
Jagged mountain peaks smile, like sharks teeth from afar.
Darkness becomes the opening curtain; the play begins.
Patchy black millipedes of men move quickly,
treaded boots thump the dusty ground.
Electronic brains confer,
Data moves between buffers,
as soldiers squirm across rooftops.
They stop in synchronized dance,
push against sand bag pillows.
Four foot rifle thorns bristle from a wall.
Sniper scope covers flip open,
green light craws over an eyeball,
crosshairs search the alleyway,
checklists mumble to a close.
Tension forces circles of sweat under armpits.
The breeze whips the pages of a small book,
the rattlesnake sound muffled by a boot.
A gloved hand lifts it for a closer look . . .
a tattered copy of the Koran.
Something changed. Blood veins thump,
voices move on radio waves,
rule books are checked twice.
Confirmation orders bark,
like small dogs in helmeted ears.
Click on this: next column
A muffled cough breaks the silence,
a shoulder gets kicked back, hard.
The shadow, dressed in rags, falls to the ground,
The clattering AK-47 spins around;
the hinged snake of soldiers moves into the dark.
The deadly dance continues until dawn,
the occasional scream quickly silenced.
The mud streets and huts, a continuum of tan.
Hollow streets and alleys, like spider webs,
wiggle across the village, running as fast they can.
The searing sun resets the soldiers back to square one.
The radio proudly rattles orders, successes scored is done.
It’s a cycle of life and death, until no one comes to join the fun.
Patchy faces that match their clothes, rest their weary bones.
It’s a career; beginning brave, until they can go home.
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John is a writer in progress. Word by word the trail of communications gets clearer. Maybe someday the message will be picked up by a distant ear and the effort to be heard will have been reached. Until that day, the keyboard clatters endlessly into the night. |
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