Soldiers
by S. K. Kelen
Sunsets, Dad and I walked the dog around the block
and he told me all about his journeys, the places
he’d been in his life. The ’twenties and ’thirties were great
until the Depression even then you got by, tough times all right.
Then there was the war when the world turned to shit.
Your war memories amazed me most, kitted out in jungle green
how tough you had to be, diving off a sinking troopship
when it hit a mine, sleeping with your rifle
strapped to a tall tree above the Borneo forest canopy.
The glory of war: weeks behind enemy lines without shower
or latrine, the food tasted like murder and the morphine
wasn’t strong enough when they got the shrapnel
out of your back. There was that one time you were shaving
that one time you were shaving outside the tent, about 5 am
before the day’s heat and mugginess settled.
Reflected in the tin shaving mirror you see a glint of metal
in the bush that shouldn’t be there, the flash from a sword,
katana, or whatever they call it (you almost laughed the words)
you kept shaving and watched in the mirror
the Japanese soldier moving quickly, quietly towards you
all you’re armed with is a cut throat razor—it’ll have to do—
he creeps up and as he draws the sword from its hilt you spun around.
Stunned and terrified the bastard cried mama—one fluid
movement like a flattened forehand tore the soldier’s larynx out
as he fell he looked into your eyes, he was just a boy
maybe seventeen or eighteen, did not have a blessed hope.
Afterwards you carried the sword in your kitbag.
The jungle heat was powerful, kind of life-affirming
in spite of the killing, and the malaria would stay in you
and keep these days to relive in future fever dreams, and sweat
turned your bed into a swamp. You shouted and swore in English
and Japanese the fury of killing and living
it was like being back there with you in that godawful war
as we cooled our dad’s burning head with damp towels.
Waking you’d stare and cry for the poor Japanese soldier
and his mama. The sword lay on the wardrobe floor,
next to a laundry basket.
S. K. Kelen is an Australian poet currently living in the bush capital, enjoys hanging around the house philosophically and travelling. Since winning the Poetry Australia Prize for Poets under 18 in 1973 his works have been widely published in journals and newspapers, anthologies and in his books. Kelen’s oeuvre includes pastorals, satires, sonnets, odes, narratives, haiku, epics, idylls, horror stories, sci-fi, allegories, prophecies, politics, history, love poems, portraits, travel poems, memory, people and places, meditations and ecstasies.