One Poem

For every brave soldier that
lost life in the war in Iraq,
we will write a poem.

We will not call you a casualty.
We will not number you. You are
our mothers and fathers, our aunts
and uncles, brothers and sisters,
husbands and wives, friends, lovers
and neighbors, our cousins
and grandparents. You are our
country, our freedom.

We will write for you.

We will remember you.

June 8, 2006

Spc. James Lee Adair

To my infantry brethren

101st Airborne! 

The “red white and blue”

“Stars and Stripes”, “Old Glory”

More than just a flag

A symbol of the American story

Flown in times of peace

Or beacon on Battlefield

Virtue follows in her wake

The colors of freedom’s shield

A proud and beautiful cloth

Soldiers diligently salute

Risen at break of day

Standing guard, resolute

And yet at service end

She humbling accepts her callin

To lovingly drape the breast

Of those most honorably fallen

~John Davenport

Spc. Jamaal R. Addison

Sleep well, soldier
know that you are honored
your name is not forgotten

we stand humbled
bowed in awe and sorrow
before your sacrifice

sleep well, soldier
sleep well
we will remember you

-Susanna Holstein

2nd Lt. Emily J.T. Perez

with thanks to Larry Jaffe

the U.S. death toll in Iraq was "minute."
--Rupert Murdoch

As in trifling, of little importance,
inconsequential, a flash in the pan
not worthy of a moment’s notice…?

Perhaps a small number,
easily absorbed in the scheme of things
for the greater good – freedom and security
and the American way of life

until my attention is brought to one
who might hold the future in her palm
with her gentle way and caring

She wanted to be a soldier
and as in everything she did
excelled as a cadet, a leader

The death of one soldier may be trifling
to one who has only urged conflict
from the safety of a corner office
in a tower at the center of universe

but I cannot help but wonder
what the continued life of a soldier
who worked for Aids patients
might have meant to our hopes

I will never know, but do know
her life or death was not slight
as the fall of a wounded sparrow

-Gary Blankenship

Lance Cpl. Patrick R. Adle

Sacrifice

Let me be the fallen soldier -
a single, nameless face.
Let me simply fall in honor,
dying in this place.

I don’t wish my name be written
in countless hist’ry books.
I don’t want the endless praise
for how, the earth, I shook.

Let me be the nameless soldier,
one who died for all.
When evil came to take us down,
just know I heard the call.

I’ll gladly lay my life down here,
give up this mortal shape.
I’ll give up my last breath for good,
before taking my escape.

Let me be the unknown soldier,
who died for peace at last,
with no problem disappearing
into nameless past.

-Jaime McDougall

Pfc. Christopher S. Adlesperger

They needed volunteers to hold the enemy back.
On a quiet, American morning you stepped into
The Gap.

And stood.

You stood when the night stretched
on too long.
You stood when the sun came
up too strong.
You stood when the sand
blew like hot coals right into your eyes.
You stood like a water wall,
holding back the fire.

And millions of fathers and mothers back home, get down on their knees
and give thanks to our Lord...

all
because you stood.

-Sara Pufahl

Cpl. Andres Aguilar Jr.

Boys seeking manhood,
Men seeking truth,
for Noble gain,
Never realizing
Possible pain,
To save a Country,
In the name of Freedom,
Democracy.
History repeats their destiny.
Some will return,
Whole, but scarred,
By the memories of
Brave soldiers,
Brothers lost to Patriotism.
We mourn for them.
We pray for them a
Safe return
We thank them for
their Sacrifice.

-Margaret Kreischer

Pfc. Michael S. Adams

You are Marion and Claire
Lucille, Edward.
You are the engineer,
the doctor's wife.

Yet, you are not.

You are Michael S. Adams

a man we will never
forget.

Sgt. Leonard W. Adams

Hero

While you were wailing
in your newborn crib
I was tuned into
the Mets and Red Sox,
watching with my mom,
and we thought the ball
moving through Buckner's
legs was the greatest
and worst thing that could
happen between us,
that a sport that could
split a mom and son
must have no value
or mean everything.

When you were seven
I left for college,
me and my mother
on the sidewalk turned
around a corner,
her quivering lips,
my sister honking
the horn. In what world
should a parent be
separated from
their child by such
distance? Not like this.
We cried for how long
we would have to drive
to see each other.

In this incursion
I want to debate
policy, theory,
the potential use
of military
force as a method
for encouraging
the spread of freely
renewable, made
by the people for
the people and of
the people regimes,
a debate about
the sword and the word,
and with what we lead.

Unfortunately,
people are dying,
and being slaughtered,
and placed in harms way,
and more turned into
killers who suffer
a bit each moment
they are under siege,
away from their homes
and kept from mothers
who love them, fathers
who wish their children
could be farmers, work
in a factory
or a skyscraper.

I load up my car,
a full tank of gas
and head out to work,
forgetting to call
home, tell my mother,
who I know worries,
how much I miss her,
and miss the ballgames
we use to sit down
together to watch,
the smell of popcorn
with salt and butter,
the crack of the bat
and thump of a ball
felled into a mitt.

So, as much as talk
intrigues me, it's not
my own enjoyment
or mental challenge
I here seek. Instead
I'll call you hero
and your Mom, goddess,
who gave birth and raised
such a sweet child
who would dedicate
their fate to winning
a fair victory
against an unfair
enemy. Hero,
that relevant word.

thom ingram

Spc. Clarence Adams III

i saw you

darkness still
you broke the veil
of dark -

i saw you -
every inch of you -
all of everything

of you -
it was perfect -
perfect -

i was full with
your light -
the light shining

through you
when i went
& where too

you can
see me now -
i

wait
blind to
transgression -

i wait
in your
for your

perfection -


by luc simonic

Sgt. 1st Class Brent A. Adams

A name is called,
a single bell tolled,
reminding us of one
young, unproven life
laid down for the freedoms
we have come to view as an entitlement.

What of that one life's entitlement‹
to a long life, filled with love,
to children and homestead,
to meaningful work and deep faith,
to reach an age that encourages reflection on a life well-lived.

Can we honor this young soldier enough?
Can we ever make sense of this loss?

Amanda J. Smith

Sgt. Brandon E. Adams

Shane E. Gilreath

Pvt. Algernon Adams

THE UNKNOWN SERVICE

This is the last shirt I will ever fold.
Here is my armless sleeve,
my face huddled up next to you,
my memory wound on the forever
replay of a grieving heart.
Here is a medal to honor
my blank chest, my shot weapon.
Here is the Humvee humming
into endless summer.
Here are my tears
folded into my body.
Here is your joy
pressed into an unplucked flower.
Here is the single rain drop
disguised as an unused sorrow.
Here is the many-tongued
denial of a mission, the lost
taste of a mother's cookie,
a father's last tool left vacant
in the vacant lot of an old garage,
heart-stopped, deadly
only to the dead
dis-re-membering.

Stop them in an alley.
Give away the clothes.
The stray cats flee
like shrapnel on a weak
horizon. All the blinds
gone bad, the future
sabotaged by a sutured smile.

Here is the last letter
I will ever write you
buried in the armor
of irony, the lit fuse
of democracy, burning
(o' burning!) for you.

Lorna Dee Cervantes

Capt. James F. Adamouski

If I Could

If I could wrap
a flag around my shoulders
like the wings
of an angel
I'd fly to you
right now.

If I could flip
love letters like
pennies
up to heaven
I'd write to you
a hundred times a day.

If I could ring all the church
bells at once, in morse code
I'd beg god each night
at 6 o'clock

to send you
back to me.

-Michelle M. Buchanan

Staff Sgt. Raymond J. Plouhar

Independence Day

In the fireworks a number of stars,
counted deaths, your 30 years among them.
Your nebula gone from Orion,
we celebrate our freedom without you.

Kathy Paupore

Sgt. Jose M. Velez

The Sand Kiss

I could write a poem of alien sand
where water is the sweetest touch,
where MacDonald's golden arches
and John Wayne cast no shadow
and the beach of the Western frontier
burns forever without the respite of ocean.

I could write a poem of reporters,
camera bulbs exploding, firing questions,
planting microphones to spout official party lines.

Men in flowing robes beneath headwear
announcing their usurpery of God
weilding official party lines like scriptures,
papal blessing kissed
like a bruise from snake lips,
as righteous as jihad.

But the poem I'm writing is of a mother,
waking from the sound of carrion wings
flapping dark knives across the sun,
to realise it's the fan ticking sweat
from the mattress where she lays listening
for her son's tread on the stair,
remembering her fingers
on the silk bristle of his army-cut hair.

Rae Pater

Spc. Genaro Acosta

The call

One day I glanced
and I perceived that I saw
a man on a bench that wept
while I swept

Inquired of him
I approached and I asked
What was so sad
what was so bad?

"My son has died
in a land far away
In the army was he
and my heart always be.

I weep not for
his passing you see
but I reflect on his life
of his joy and his strife

a troubled lad
was he in his youth
but joy did he find
assisting, to be kind

I'm weeping you see
from a post have I here
telling his deed that was so brave
written by the family he did save."

I went my rounds
sweeping the ground in silence
thought did I no ill can befall
when our children heed and answer the call.

jd bowling

1st Lt. Scott M. Love

Letter from a Soldier to His Daughter
(A Found Poem)

Vina, I had a dream
with you in it the other night.

We were at the beach and we made
a gigantic sand castle. A castle with candy

cane stripes and we climbed to the top
of the tower. From there, we could see far

out to sea. You told stories about friendly
rhinos and magical forests and adventures

on the moon and I listened and laughed.
The sky turned pink, then orange.

When the winking stars came out,
we climbed down out of the tower and walked

on the sand with no shoes on. I love you
Vina, I had a dream.

Lois P. Jones

Sgt. Michael D. Acklin II

a death a day

"In the first 27 days of June, 27 soldiers and
marines were killed [in Anbar Province] . . .
New York Times, June 29, 2006

unlit helicopter lifts another
by night

hard to find someone to unzip
black bag

see peace pooled on last
expression

letter to broken home maybe
ex-wife

while real family left saluting in
spin of sand

j.b. rowell

Pfc. Devon J. Gibbons

June 23, 2006
Port Orchard, Washington

I did not know you, at 19 young enough
to graduate the year before my granddaughter,
the year after my grandson. Old enough
to teach seminary, but still a kid in many ways.

Remember rooting for the Wolves,
fireworks over Sinclair Inlet on the 4th.
Remember digging clams at Manchester,
bike rides along Beach Drive.

Our summer begins with August heat,
mornings perfect for long walks, reflection.
On every street, flags fly proud
to salute our Nation’s birth.

The Olympics stand blueberry
in God’s full glory,
Rainier rises tall
saluting

Hero,
I did not know you.

Gary Blankenship

Sgt. 1st Class Ramon A. Acevedoaponte

Jerry Dreesen

Pfc. Steven Acosta

My friend

when you left,
you were a child -
starlight in those eyes,
gateway to heaven
in that smile.
we never met,
but perhaps one day
you'll meet those
of us who waited
your return.
and yours, and yours -
all Heroes.
then we'll have
a ticker-tape
parade to thank you,
to welcome all you
Men and Women
home.

Penny August

Cmdr. Joseph Acevedo

The summer sky at night
is endless,
black and full of stars.

I sit on the deck
alone, dreaming new
constellations.

Finger to the darkness
connecting the dots
over and over
until I see your face-

and I always do
see your face.

-Michelle M. Buchanan

To Our Fallen Canadian Soldiers

things we won’t do now

the horse chestnuts bloom
across the road
white flowered steeples
bringing dreams of autumn
then i remembered
you won’t be here
to make conkers.

Patricia Cresswell

Pfc. Brett L. Tribble

The colors in Texas are different.
Bluebonnets pale and the Indian paint

brush refuses to bloom. Since
you went to war clouds do not remind us

of elephants and clowns. Laughter's
sound is a faded song trapped in a tin can.

Occasions are not special. There will never
be a more beautiful smile. I will think of you

when parents show pride at a wedding,
graduation, birth. When flags, or wins

bring people to their feet, or I feel pride
in a child’s accomplishment, a boy’s beauty—
I will think of your parents.

KL Monahan

Spec. Brandon L. Teeters

Nights when the winds rise
in the dark moaning oak trees,
we know that it's you.
Home again. Whispering
how much you love us.
Lilies rise outside your
old bedroom window
to greet you.
Neighborhood dogs bark,
rush out, ears cocked
sensing what we cannot yet see.
You walk in the light now,
memories of bombings, shellings
and lost friends behind you.
You are a boy again, a teenager,
a young man. Your family's joy.
A rainbow forms over your home.

Pris Campbell

Cpl. Roberto Abad

The Sky Tonight

Greyish-purple,
bloated arms streak
wild and warm
waiting to exhale.

The oaks and maples
line up, turned leaves
to their soft under
sides.

Like a thousand frog
bellies breathing in
the wind.

It will rain
all night.

Tomorrow the ground
will diamond in a wet,
slick clean.

The sky will open
to you again,

tomorrow.

Michelle M. Buchanan June 28, 2006

GUIDELINES

Please do not dedicate your poem to a specific
person. All poems will be donated to a soldier
randomly.

Write knowing that someday a family member
of a lost soldier could read your poem - be
considerate of that in your content. In other
words, imagine it IS a friend or relative
you're writing for.

This is not the place to protest. It is also not
the place to advertise.

Send your poem (s) to MMB555@aol.com
Subject heading: Operation Poem. You
may write as many poems as you would
like. Please keep line limit below 30-40 lines.
Send your poem exactly as you would like
it to appear on the site (name beneath poem
if you want your name included).