A dark flow poem from my time in Gulf War 1, inspired by my experiences with war. |
-Hypnotic Eye- by Keaton Foster Crazy as sin There He was A man of life Soon to be Dead I was by his side Kneeling down Holding His cold hand As his life Spilled out wide Both of us Warriors He The enemy Me The victorious At least As far As that battle went Easily I could have been him And he Could have been me But I was quicker Upon the trigger I saw him first And He saw nothing I was sent By those in charge Trained to kill To the enth degree Then implemented A copy of those before And no doubt A million more Man has been And will Kill each other For all of time It was just war A battle of wits And I Not him On that particular day Was presently winning But Of all the men That I’ve ever killed Him That one Would since remain At the forefront Of my expansive brain One that I would take From the battlefield Back here to home Deep Into my skin and bones As a true marksmen Usually I never missed Center mass If not A headshot Both Clean and quick Brutal and proficient Death dealt Always With kind regard Feelings I sure did And still do have them Suppressing them Was of course hell For all of my life I was taught Thou shall not kill Until one day My superiors Handed me a rifle And ordered me Kill as many them As you can The enemy of ours Now belongs to you So there I was In some distant land Ending lives From Impersonal distances Heart or head Quicker means To the same Brutal demise But that one Was very much different He was not dead Not yet He was alive Twitching inside His body jerked His fingers stiffened His lips a solid blue His mind Matter displaced There was a small hole Right where His right eye once was The back of his head Blown clean off All that remained Slightly recognizable At best But His left eye Was still there Intact Perfect in fact It was Looking up at me Looking up at the sky Following my motions Staring through me Now with Very peaceful intentions He was trying To convey something That I could not betray Something That I would take Deep into my heart Deeper into my soul He wanted me to know To truly understand That what was done there In that place In this existence of killers Was important So important That I had to believe That was why he was Somehow still holding on Somehow alive I began asking myself Life is a one way thing He will not survive Or possibly could he Certainly His impending doom Via my marksmen skills Could not be ignored By me or death But His hypnotic eye The one Following mine Back and forth Up and down All around His body still His dark skin The palest white The ground all around Stained red and pink Then His chest climbed once more And he let out a brutal Chain reaction Of both life and death Simultaneous Relief and terror His undamaged eye Steadied one more time Upon mine Then he The man that I shot Was gone Before that day I would have said Right to hell But after that After what was conveyed In the time made I must still admit That I’m quite sure That hell Was the one place That he was going Least of all… Hypnotic Eye Written by Keaton Foster Copyright © 2014. |