Invasion, 1991
Beside the river, ash
rose like a funnel
in air, the earth cracked —
petrified tree roots,
the wall of an ancient city,
deep veins of lapis, arteries
of molten blood.
I stood on shore as the fish
inched out …
Poetry
Click on a poem title to read the poem — only the opening lines appear on this page.
At the Grave of Abdul Hassan, Baghdad
This is not an American cemetery,
grass does not grow here;
the place is centuries old —
wind-scoured, raw as a scratched
thigh, and who is left to mourn
but abandoned mothers —
black crows on the smashed landscape,
heads …
Ernest in Elysium
Why put the barrel in your mouth?
Why not the solar plexus, toward the heart,
or to your temple or one ear?
Why choose the palate to be burst apart
before you toppled over dumb-
struck from your favorite partridge …
Courtship in Italy
Circumstances change the fashion,
flowers and music yield to C-rations.
Edward Jasowitz
Author: Edward Jasowitz
S. Sgt. Edward Jasowitz served with the American army in the Mediterranean in WWII. That is all we could find out about him.
Market Day in Emam Sahib
dusty brown bare feet puff
the tan dust as they shuffle
on, pushing
flat wood carts that carry
vegetables, sticks, cloth
carry the earth itself
from place to place
mud hut to mud hut
old lined face to old lined …
The My Tho Laundry
Yes these are mine
I carry them from shower to dreams
and sniff them in dark dawns
I find them in my food
they cling like cigarette smoke in hair
and clog pores like dead skin,
these gray stenches of …