Benjamin Niespodziany
—
War is a Fortune Teller Spending the Night
[1] Draft
He draws a card. Arm, the card says.
They remove his arm. He draws
another card. Army, the card says.
They give him a tin can and a hand
grenade. His plane is waiting. The
blood is wet.
[2] Belittling a Symphony of Still
The soldier empties the powder from
his grenade and fills it instead with
wind. He triggers the pin and swallows
the pin and spins clarity with prayer.
When the grenade explodes, it snows
forever. Soldier of cold, the grenade
explodes. A drummer boy on a park
bench stuffs his trombone with grapes.
[3] The Hill with the Gravel and the Dismantled Car
When the soldier wakes, he orders
more grenades. Before the grenades
arrive, he dies. He becomes for the
other soldiers a toy. He becomes a
lung. The grenades unsung are placed
around him in a circle. His daughter
arrives and his favorite drill sergeant
arrives and both poise coins over the
soldier's eyes. They look the other way
and they swallow his pins. Enough is
on the line to find a new ride home.
[4] Painful Enough to Paint
Years after the war, a rocket falls to
earth, onto a calm garden where the
soldier imagines a pond. He's gone.
His wife is down the street at the teeth
store, singing a song about a grenade
painful enough to paint.
Benjamin Niespodziany is a writer whose work has appeared in Indiana Review, Booth, Sixth Finch, Bennington Review, Conduit, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection was released in 2022 through Okay Donkey and his book of micro stage plays is out now with X-R-A-Y. The host of a bi-monthly reading series in Chicago (Neon Night Mic), he also recently launched his own indie press known as Piżama Press. You can find more at www.neonpajamas.com
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