Warrior's Guide through the Battle after Combat (unpublished)

By Richard L. Muehlberg

Who cares what a soldier feels? 53 prose-poem portraits of contemporary American combat veterans: ___ 01 WISE DOG / my dog keeps pressing / her right flank into my / left leg as we walk she is / connecting with me this / keeps my right hand free / she paces me guards me / we're with my comrades-from-the-day on a long walk on this road through these woods across my land my home, company for the night, no words, no need for words, a crackling fire, cold crisp air, staring into the flames, nothing but GOOD flames lost / found in this firelight, warm against the darkness, the night wrapped around us, my comrades shield me, my dog comforts me, she understands the way only a good dog understands she is superior to me so wise she draws out / away the bad / she cancels the BAD ___ 02 SLING / New York late morning / on the sidewalk / bordering / the Armenian church / I see an approaching man / face hidden / in the shadow of his cap / a black-ops warrior operative home pushing an empty stroller with his left hand his child an infant in a chest sling his child's sleeping face presses into the father's heart the man's large right open outstretched hand shields this sleeping fresh life from the world / we pass each other ___ 03 this is the knife / I carried in combat / I keep it sharp / I use this knife to cut myself now small thin cuts just enough to get blood this knife was life over there now I use the knife to keep me alive / over here / I cut myself to / keep FRESH ___ 04 water for blood / blood for water / WAR with our blood we were baptized in his name into the NEXT life BLOOD for water / blood for water / water for blood / FAMILY with this water our children are baptized in his name into THIS life WATER for blood ___ 05 TO MY WIFE / thank you for loving me / for washing healing / my wounded broken body / my wounded broken spirit / for seeing into all my past and future and never wavering in your PURIFYING love / TO MY HUSBAND / thank you for loving me / for washing healing / my wounded broken body / my wounded broken spirit / for seeing into all my past and future and never wavering in your PURIFYING love ___ 06 PEAK / my born-legs end above / my knees my gifted-legs / 3D-printing prosthetics / complete me to the ground / we have climbed this / mountain roped together / different broken lives joined by this challenge strangers from the same war breathing the same air on this apex pointing up as the sky reaches down to bless us we LAUGH in the release ___ 07 circular ERROR / PROBABLE your / dangling eyeballs look / at me with stupid incomprehension, I know it's you because I know your eyes, their mortars hit you, not me, you're crumpled and eviscerated, they're gone, our drones are tracking them, you and I were both in their CEP / I was in the "E", / you, the "P" ___ 08 SCREAM / I keep one / empty shell casing / in my pocket / I can still smell the spent powder residue one casing out of thousands ejected discarded around our positions that scream I screamed as I fired I'm invincible / untouchable / ARMOR made of tissue / compared to the shit they shot at us but armor ENOUGH / I survived / I was not spent / I'm a ROUND / not an empty ___ 09 so what / I wear a CRUCIFIX / under my vest / I hate being alone / BODY / ARMOR so what I keep an unopened letter-from-home in one of my pockets I use it to PULL-me-BACK-home I hate being alone

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 152013696X
• ISBN13: 9781520136967
• Release Date: December 2016
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 56 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.1" x 5.0"