No Soldier Story

By Ish Klein Ish Klein

These ghost soldiers live underground with the vast

oversupply of castoff lanterns.

If one were to take broadsword to one of these

orange-bearded mammoth men of rough hew,

he would laugh at the passing metal,

make light of entrails.

For years I have been here without a clear map.

That hopes should dim as days go on above is

natural I suppose, what do I know?

I am dressed like one of them.

The thick walls quake but stay soundproof.

I fear my fists vestigial.

These soldiers’ own panic is taking up rugs

finding filigrees of the former world beneath,

e.g., a locket with their mongrel’s mush.

They will freeze, then feign noncom; smacking barrels of burgundy

with pistol butts. I react comme squirrel:

fleeing their reach to the chamber out of the impact area.

One loved me until I asked if he worried about what must be

happening without us. Well, his lips did narrow, hand abandoned my knee,

blah, blah big mouth were his departing words.

I will not say with shame that I came from nothing.

Someone paved my first breakthrough at least,

one time calling it love. And I will stand by that

as it applies to my primary makeup.

Source: Union! (Canarium Books, 2009)

Biography

Poet and filmmaker Ish Klein grew up in Long Island and was educated at Columbia University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Klein’s poetry collections include Moving Day (2011) and Union! (2009).

With both vulnerability and humor, Klein’s lyrical poems measure the strata of daily social and literary engagement. “Klein’s work consistently explores the conflict between authenticity and literary convention,” observes Boston . . .

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