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The uneasy, lyrical skin that lies Between death and life, trembling alwaysAn airplane come over, perfectly Soundless, but could not tell Why I lived, or why I was sitting, With my lungs being shaped like two bells, At the wheel ofa craft in a wave Ofattack that broke upon coral. "I become pure spirit," I tried To say, in a bright smoke ofbubbles, But I was becoming no more Than haunted, for to be so Is to sink out ofsight, and to lose The power ofspeech in the presence Ofthe dead, with the eyes turning green, And to leap at last for the sky Very nearly too late, where another Leapt and could not break into His breath, where it lay, in battle As in peace, available, secret, Dazzling and huge, filled with sunlight, For thousands ofmiles on the water. Horses andPrisoners In the war where many men fell Wind blew in a ring, and was grass. Many horses fell also to rifles On a track in the Philippine Islands And divided their still, wiry meat To be eaten by prisoners. I sat at the finish line At the end ofthe war Knowing that I would live. Long grass went around me, halfwind, Where I rode the rail ofthe infield And the dead horses travelled in waves Horses and Prisoners / I83 On past the finishing post. Dead wind lay down in live grass, The flowers, pounding like hooves, Stood up in the sun and were still, And my mind, like a fence on fire, Went around those unknown men: Those who tore from the red, light bones The intensified meat ofhunger And then lay down open-eyed In a raw, straining dream ofnew life. Joy entered the truth and flowed over As the wind rose out ofthe grass Leaping with red and white flowers: Joy in the bone-strewn infield Where clouds ofbarbed wire contained Men who ran in a vision ofgreenness, Sustained by the death ofbeasts, On the tips ofthe sensitive grass blades, Each footstep putting forth petals, Their bones light and strong as the wind. From the fence I dropped offand waded Knee-deep in the billowing homestretch And picked up the red ofone flower. It beat in my hand like my heart, Filled with the pulse ofthe air, And I felt my long thighbones yearn To leap with the trained, racing dead. When beasts are fallen in wars For food, men seeking a reason to live Stand mired in the on-going grass And sway there, sweating and thinking, With fire coming out oftheir brains Like the thought offood and life Ofprisoners. When death moves close In the night, I think I can kill it: Let a man let his mind burn and change him Helmets / I 84 To one who was prisoner here As he sings in his sleep in his home, His mane streaming over the pillows, The white threads oftime Mixed with the hair ofhis temples, His grave-grass risen without him: Now, in the green ofthat sleep, Let him start the air ofthe island From the tangled gate ofjute string That hangs from the battered grandstand Where hope comes from animal blood And the hooves ofghosts become flowers That a captive may run as in Heaven: Let him strip the dead shirt from his chest And, sighing like all saved men, Take his nude child in his arms. Drinkingfrom aHelmet I I climbed out, tired of waiting For my foxhole to turn in the earth On its side or its back for a grave, And got in line Somewhere in the roaring of dust. Every tree on the island was nowhere, Blasted away. II In the middle of combat, a graveyard Was advancing after the troops With laths and balls of string; Grass already tinged it with order. Between the new graves and the foxholes A green water-truck stalled out. I moved up on it, behind The hill that cut off the firing. Drinking from a Helmut / I 85 ...

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