Allen, Paul

Ground Forces

1. We are the new militia, armed with empty arms,
2. inducted now by having come to know
3. the last shall be first and the first shall be last – but
4. concurrently. All those pleas – God, Please –
5. hushed we hear ourselves swearing in:
6. Well, I’ll be and then begin to be.
7.  
8. When Moses gets his huge oh-by-the-way
9. from Yahweh: You will see but not get in…
10. he clucked a little Well, I’ll be, and was –
11. went back to star charts, rams’ horns, faced the music
12. in the voices of schlemiels who still had hope
13. that they could live God’s odds, husbands saying
14. (trying to say), wives saying (trying to say):
15. It will be all right, honey.
16. Moses is using his snake rod, sea’s parting.
17. I’ll take the baby. Now please, try not to say anything.
18.  
19. But maybe some, more than we might guess,
20. bathed themselves in the beautiful peace
21. of utter, complete defeat and stepped through the walls
22. of ocean water – just no point in staying home
23. and washing the blood off the door.
24.  
25. And like them, all those herders
26. who owned the pigs full of devils, all those pigs
27. sent spinning over the cliffs into the sea,
28. their livelihoods – their lives – bloating below,
29. – this Jesus getting wowed by those who loved him –
30. climbed down for one last look. They saw
31. they’d put their money on the quinella of wrong
32. animals on the wrong cliff at the wrong time
33. in the wrong land. Like the nation before,
34. they stepped to high ground,
35. saw in a moment of bright relief
36. that the cosmic brass ring
37. had been bolted to the pole all along.
38. They clicked their tongues to their mounts,
39. laughed a little Well, I’ll be and shook
40. their heads, amazed they’d let themselves hurt
41. and hurt their loves through so much hope
42. and wanting all that time.
43.  
44. So each goes home, pulls his hewn stool
45. to table, not sad or afraid anymore, says:
46. A god came along today and threw our herd
47. into the sea. We may have to tighten our belts.
48. And she, does she rail? No. She is blessed
49. with the gift such knowledge is – for her,
50. has always been – touches his head,
51. her hands soft with grain dust one more day,
52. streaks of evening in the smoky room showing
53. the edges and angles of make-do she has always
54. known. She laughs a Well, I’ll be, and he,
55. knowing it is all out now, out and over,
56. loves her, laughs with her, and finally
57. the two begin to be. A victory.
58.  
59. See? Winners aren’t blessed because they win
60. nor win because they’re blessed.
61. Get it, Hiroshima? Get it, Cherokee?
62. They win because the losers have been blessed.
63. Publishers Clearing House, application,
64. resume, query, manuscript, bid,
65. bio. So, what are you waiting for?
66. Go on, send it in,
67. Mr. or Mrs. Strong-work-but-there-were-others,
68. oh you, you Hope-you-try-us-again.
69. It isn’t called submitting for nothing.
70.  
71. If you don’t send, there’s no one for the other
72. guy to beat. Any jerk can lick a stamp
73. or call cold contacts when there’s hope.
74. You, the blessed, must try again precisely because
75. there is no hope. Your duty, graceful loser,
76. your final knowing it’s going nowhere
77. means you must plug on from here on out.
78. You have been chosen to send it,
79. because you have been chosen to take it –
80. on the chin again. And again.
81. And all those “goals and objectives”
82. (which you’ve missed),
83. all those Saturdays of making lists,
84. pockets full of prospects, self-help books:
85. presumptuous to include them here with lives
86. in wilderness and ruin beyond measure?
87.  
88. Exactly! Now you’re getting the idea. You
89. may be one of the blessed. Another year
90. or two of this, and you might say your own I’ll be.
91.  
92. If you’ve managed to stay among us, friend,
93. till then, not suffered death or success,
94. then join us. We meet oft:en
95. shaking it off, rubbing our chins,
96. chuckling in our tiny, blessed defeats.