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Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Eli Came Back
Last night, I had a three-hour dinner with seven women including Nancy Lessin, co-founder of Military Families Speak Out. There, I got to watch the birth of a Colorado MFSO chapter! I was inspired and moved throughout the evening. I just got goose bumps thinking about it.
This morning, I started to write about MFSO and my experience with these strong women, but the phone rang. It was another mother who couldn't be there last night. Her son is a medic who has served in Iraq. She told me about a poem written about him, so I looked it up and it screamed to be told again. I found it on the blog, Fight to Survive. I hope the author and fts bloggers don't mind if I re-print it here. I have to answer when something screams like that. I will write about MFSO tomorrow.
Eli Came Back From Iraq
Eli came back from Iraq
and tattooed a teddy bear onto the inside of his wrist
above that a medic with an IV bag
above that an angel
but Eli says the teddy bear won't live
and I know I don't know but I say "I know"
because Eli's only 24 and I've never seen eyes
further away from childhood than his
eyes old with a wisdom
he knows I'd rather not have
Eli's mother traces a teddy bear onto my arm
and says not all casualties come home in body bags
and I swear
I'd spend the rest of my life writing nothing
but the word light at the end of this tunnel
if I could find the fucking tunnel
I'd write nothing but white flags
somebody pray for the soldiers
somebody pray for what's lost
somebody pray for the mailbox
that holds the official letters
to the mothers, fathers, sisters and little brothers
of Micheal 19...Steven 21...John 33
how ironic that their deaths sound like bible verses
the hearse is parked in the halls of the high school
recruiting black brown and poor
while anti-war activists outside walter reed army hospital
scream 100, 000 slain…
as an amputee on the third floor
breathes forget-me-nots onto the window pain
but can we forget what we never knew
our sky is so perfectly blue it's repulsive
somebody tell me where god lives
cause if god is truth
god doesn't live here
our lies have seared the sun too hot live by
there are ghosts of people who are still alive
touting M16s with trembling hands
while we dream ourselves stars on Survivor
another missile sets fire to the face in the locket
of a mother who's son
needed money for college
and she swears she can feel his photograph burn
how many wars will it take us to learn
that only the dead return
the rest remain forever caught between worlds of
shrapnel shatters body of three year old girl!
and…
welcome to McDonalds can I take your order?
the mortar of sanity crumbling
stumbling back home to a home that will never be home again
Eli doesn't know if he can ever write a poem again
1 third of the homeless men in this country are veterans
and we have the nerve to "Support Our Troops"
with pretty yellow ribbons
while giving nothing but dirty looks to their outstretched hands
tell me what land of the free
sets free its 18 year old kids into greedy war zones
hones them like missiles
then returns their bones in the middle of the night
so know one can see
their deaths swept beneath the carpet and hidden like dirt
their lives promises we never kept
Jeff Lucey came back from Iraq
and hung himself in his parents basement with a garden hose
the night before he died he spent forty five minutes on his fathers lap
rocking like a baby
rocking like daddy save me!
and don't think for a minute he too isn't collateral damage
in the mansions of Washington
they are watching them burn and hoarding the water
no senators sons are being sent out to slaughter
no president's daughters are licking ashes from their lips
or dreaming up ropes to wrap around their necks
in case they ever make it home alive
our eyes are closed america
there are souls in the boots of the soldiers america
fuck your yellow ribbon
you want to support our troops
bring them home
and hold them tight when they get here
Written by Andrea Gibson January 2006
This morning, I started to write about MFSO and my experience with these strong women, but the phone rang. It was another mother who couldn't be there last night. Her son is a medic who has served in Iraq. She told me about a poem written about him, so I looked it up and it screamed to be told again. I found it on the blog, Fight to Survive. I hope the author and fts bloggers don't mind if I re-print it here. I have to answer when something screams like that. I will write about MFSO tomorrow.
Eli Came Back From Iraq
Eli came back from Iraq
and tattooed a teddy bear onto the inside of his wrist
above that a medic with an IV bag
above that an angel
but Eli says the teddy bear won't live
and I know I don't know but I say "I know"
because Eli's only 24 and I've never seen eyes
further away from childhood than his
eyes old with a wisdom
he knows I'd rather not have
Eli's mother traces a teddy bear onto my arm
and says not all casualties come home in body bags
and I swear
I'd spend the rest of my life writing nothing
but the word light at the end of this tunnel
if I could find the fucking tunnel
I'd write nothing but white flags
somebody pray for the soldiers
somebody pray for what's lost
somebody pray for the mailbox
that holds the official letters
to the mothers, fathers, sisters and little brothers
of Micheal 19...Steven 21...John 33
how ironic that their deaths sound like bible verses
the hearse is parked in the halls of the high school
recruiting black brown and poor
while anti-war activists outside walter reed army hospital
scream 100, 000 slain…
as an amputee on the third floor
breathes forget-me-nots onto the window pain
but can we forget what we never knew
our sky is so perfectly blue it's repulsive
somebody tell me where god lives
cause if god is truth
god doesn't live here
our lies have seared the sun too hot live by
there are ghosts of people who are still alive
touting M16s with trembling hands
while we dream ourselves stars on Survivor
another missile sets fire to the face in the locket
of a mother who's son
needed money for college
and she swears she can feel his photograph burn
how many wars will it take us to learn
that only the dead return
the rest remain forever caught between worlds of
shrapnel shatters body of three year old girl!
and…
welcome to McDonalds can I take your order?
the mortar of sanity crumbling
stumbling back home to a home that will never be home again
Eli doesn't know if he can ever write a poem again
1 third of the homeless men in this country are veterans
and we have the nerve to "Support Our Troops"
with pretty yellow ribbons
while giving nothing but dirty looks to their outstretched hands
tell me what land of the free
sets free its 18 year old kids into greedy war zones
hones them like missiles
then returns their bones in the middle of the night
so know one can see
their deaths swept beneath the carpet and hidden like dirt
their lives promises we never kept
Jeff Lucey came back from Iraq
and hung himself in his parents basement with a garden hose
the night before he died he spent forty five minutes on his fathers lap
rocking like a baby
rocking like daddy save me!
and don't think for a minute he too isn't collateral damage
in the mansions of Washington
they are watching them burn and hoarding the water
no senators sons are being sent out to slaughter
no president's daughters are licking ashes from their lips
or dreaming up ropes to wrap around their necks
in case they ever make it home alive
our eyes are closed america
there are souls in the boots of the soldiers america
fuck your yellow ribbon
you want to support our troops
bring them home
and hold them tight when they get here
Written by Andrea Gibson January 2006
Labels: Eli, Military Families Speak Out
posted by Carol at 1:04 PM
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