SNAFU

1 The signal is digging in, 
2 digging trenches until disjunction inherits 
3 a troglodyte world1: 
4 assimilation, successful metaphor, 
5 and repetitive repetition
6 breed forgetfulness, 
7 so much so, digging out 
8 makes an uneasy task of up
9 and meeting out the square.
10
11 There, cars circle, 
12 circle the suicide circle; 
13 standing at the intersection, 
14 actuality starts digging in.
15 World turns wholly upside down,
16 every situation, situation normal all fucked up, 
17 and separation sinks in beyond all recognition.
18
19 Pray God holds the women and children.
20 Twenty-five thousand miles halve the Earth, 
21 dug in, literally disjunct,
22 with the lucky ones, 
23 not asleep, up and out 
24 among the dead,
25 where trees are torn from their beds
26 and sheets are strewn about 
27 over lying men’s heads:
28
29             Mud knee deep in some places, 
30             others deeper than one dared to venture, 
31             crawling about in the muck,
32             washed away by the runoff of the leaden rain.
33             Only way to bear the monstrous horror of it all 
34             was to look upward away the earthly reality . . . 
35             existing from moment to moment2, 
36
37 from half-sleep to waking-dream
38 of physical sanctimony
39 and gas-lit automaticrazy. 

11.26.10
    

¹ Fussell, Paul. The Great War and Modern Memory. Oxford University Press, 1977. "The idea of 'the trenches' has been assimilated so successfully by metaphor and myth ('Georgian complacency died in the trenches') that it is not easy now to recover a feeling for the actualities. Entrenched, in an expression like entrenched power, has been a dead metaphor so long that we must bestir ourselves to recover its literal sense" (36).

² Sledge, E. B. With the Old Breed: at Peleliu and Okinawa. Presidio Press, 2010. "The stench of death was overpowering. The only way I could bear the monstrous horror of it all was to look upward away from the earthly reality surrounding us, watch the leaden gray clouds go skudding over, and repeat over and over to myself that the situation was unreal—just a nightmare— that I would soon awake and find myself somewhere else. But the ever-present smell of death saturated my nostrils. It was there with every breath I took. I existed from moment to moment, sometimes thinking death would have been preferable" (273).