Here, Bullet

Brian Turner

• Publisher: Alice James Books
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781882295555
• eBook ISBN: 9781938584145
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

A first-person account of the Iraq War by a solider-poet, winner of the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award.

Adding his voice to the current debate about the US occupation of Iraq, in poems written in the tradition of such poets as Wilfred Owen, Yusef Komunyakaa ( Dien Cai Dau ), Bruce Weigl ( Song of Napalm ) and Alice James' own Doug Anderson ( The Moon Reflected Fire ), Iraqi war veteran Brian Turner writes power-fully affecting poetry of witness, exceptional for its beauty, honesty, and skill. Based on Turner's yearlong tour in Iraq as an infantry team leader, the poems offer gracefully rendered, unflinching description but, remarkably, leave the reader to draw conclusions or moral lessons. Here, Bullet is a must-read for anyone who cares about the war, regardless of political affiliation.

I

Who brings forth the living from the dead,

and the dead from the living?

—QUR’AN, 10:30

The Baghdad Zoo

Is the world safer? No. It’s not safer in Iraq.

—HANS BLIX

An Iraqi northern brown bear mauled a man

on a street corner, dragging him down an alley

as shocked onlookers shouted and threw stones.

Tanks rolled their heavy tracks

past the museum and up to the Ministry of Oil.

A gunner watched a lion chase down a horse.

Eaten down to their skeletons, the giraffes

looked prehistoric, unreal, their necks

too fragile, too graceful for the 21st Century.

Dalmatian pelicans and marbled teals

flew over, frightened by the rotorwash

of Blackhawk helicopters touching down.

One baboon escaped the city limits.

It was found wandering in the desert, confused

by the wind, the blowing sands of the barchan dunes.

Hwy 1

I see a horizon lit with blood,

And many a starless night.

A generation comes and another goes

And the fire keeps burning.

—AL-JAWAHIRI

It begins with the Highway of Death,

with an untold number of ghosts

wandering the road at night, searching

for the way home, to Najaf, Kirkuk,

Mosul and Kanni al Saad. It begins here

with a shuffling of feet on the long road north.

This is the spice road of old, the caravan trail

of camel dust and heat, where Egyptian limes

and sultani lemons swayed in crates

strapped down by leather, where merchants

traded privet flowers and musk, aloes,

honeycombs and silk brought from the Orient.

Past Marsh Arabs and the Euphrates wheel,

past wild camels and waving children

who marvel at the painted guns, the convoy

pushes on, past the ruins of Babylon and Sumer,

through the land of Gilgamesh where the minarets

sound the muezzin’s prayer, resonant and deep.

Cranes roost atop power lines in enormous

bowl-shaped nests of sticks and twigs,

and when a sergeant shoots one from the highway

it pauses, as if amazed that death has found it

here, at 7 A.M. on such a beautiful morning,

before pitching over the side and falling

in a slow unraveling of feathers and wings.

In the Leupold Scope

With a 40X60mm spotting scope

I traverse the Halabjah skyline,

scanning rooftops two thousand meters out

to find a woman in sparkling green, standing

among antennas and satellite dishes,

hanging laundry on an invisible line.

She is dressing the dead, clothing them

as they wait in silence, the pigeons circling

as fumestacks billow a noxious black smoke.

She is welcoming them back to the dry earth,

giving them dresses in tangerine and teal,

woven cotton shirts dyed blue.

She waits for them to lean forward

into the breeze, for the wind’s breath

to return the bodies they once had,

women with bre...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Note to the Reader
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• A Soldier’s Arabic
• I
• II
• III
• IV
• Notes