February-March: Mud Season


When melting snow
mixes with defrosting ground
the result is like the gooey consistency
of flour and water.

Sloshing through the soft
unstable ground,
it squishes through toes,
cakes itself on shoes.
It gets on everything
and stays on everything.

It dries and cracks
like the skin on the bottom of your feet.


(MUD
UGH.)

Ghosts of War by Ryan Smithson

I have been reading the novel, Ghosts of War, by Ryan Smithson, a 19-year-old G.I. who served in Afghanistan. He served in an equipment platoon, repairing roads and working construction. Most war novels are about the battles and attacks and counter-attacks, and convoys and such. The front lines, in short. This novel is very different. It is about the supporting companies who make it possible for "front line" G.I.'s to get to there objective etc...
This story brings the reader into Afghanistan and they connect with Ryan, or at least I did. I learned how some G.I.'s survive and remain relatively sane by being insane. He has a discussion about sanity and insanity, and how it is relative to your surroundings. Reading this novel was an extremely eye-opening experience. I would strongly recommend this novel to anyone who wants to get a real life account of one G.I's experience in Afghanistan.

On a cloudy day,
in the spring of 1784,
the goats were running wild

And I believed it all to be a lie,
but oddly enough
a majestic old man,
was standing on the hillside
as bright as the day was not

so I jumped
realizing
I was not hallucinating
but dreaming
as I slept.

The sour grape
surrounded by magma
burned
quickly
in a lake.
cloudy
the goats were running wild
in the spring of 1784
and i belived it all to be a lie
but oddly placed
so i jumped anyways
the majestic old man
slept

This was a writing exercise where we didn't see what the lines before  were and were given to write a part of speech or location etc...