III
What he, the deceased was 
To me I am not sure —
A belligerent fiend,
(who it was that was not,
I would not know), who still 
In this war called me by
My name, occasionally 
Asking me how I was 
When no one else did–friend
Of sorts;  and as of now

Now an erstwhile being, 
Now as though never having been,
His essence as much as a fiction
Imagined more as an
Overlapping of faces, more a
Composite of men I killed, 
And yet, non-entity that he is, 
He slid into the trench
Where I was
Wedging himself into life and mind
Disturbing thought
Which deserved disturbing–

In aftershock and travail
From firing and being fired upon
Was the torture of thought–
Thought that,
With healing a misnomer,
There was only amputation of dead flesh
Where flesh was concerned, 
And if the whole of that which was mislabelled as soul
Were to fall inert, dead as it were, although death 
Even by flesh, was incremental,
The corpse still replicating cells 
In some regions hours and even days later,
It, the “soul”–whatever it was–it too, when dead 
Could never be fully revived as a whole, 
Even if one, as an automaton, 
Were able to carry on with motions and commerce  
That sustained one’s existence.
But at the ocean, I responded, 
I could be revived there. 

To be in this state–
Reacting to orders, yes Sir!, and
To instincts for survival, yes sir, 
Shutting off thought
The best that can be done, 
 I was probably in this state already–
War veteren
Soon to be
If demise
Does not come physically
From all of this
To carry this miscarriage 
Like a dead fetus, albeit throughout his life, 
And not merely months of that which should have been gestation– 
Actually it should be a lifetime of gestation and bifurcating growth,
Each entity having innate worth instead of just being an 
Accident of conception (but in this world the lucky, so to speak, 
Are accidents of conception with most seeds blowing 
On the top layer of the hardened arid Earth
That is rarely open to them) . 

With those not starving experiencing the mange
Of indifference toward those who are, the soul
Is in continual decay. 
Even if the death of the soul as a composite was complete, 
The decomposition 
Of the undergirding of the girth of the animation of self
Would be slow and insidious
As any decomposition.
But at the ocean, I responded, 
I could be revived there. 

It, he, the deceased, had slid into the trench,
Dirt, decomposed matter, 
Falling into my cup of water, making it into a sullied 
Tea  to which I pulled out the sodden leaves.
“What are you thinking?” he asked me.
“You are supposed to be dead,” I said.
“What is death?  Everything
In this seemingly concrete 
But ever fluid dimension is
As solid as matter, 
Electromagnetic energy coalesced, gets, 
But only for a time. 
What are you thinking about?”
“Many things, I suppose. 
You–your death; those whom I murdered; Mariupol.”

“Such stages of death happen to men like me, like you, 
Who had been conditioned to believe
And believe fervently, 
In these contrived, socially conditioned
Nonsensical abstractions of 
State, democracy, country, and freedom” the man, 
The erstwhile entity, said, 
But his saying having no relevance
When one “now” stacks on another
Like decomposing corpses, or
Like layers of sediment in
The Earth’s soil
That the creatures of now trod upon. 
Still, he was right that there was no freedom
In being dead. 
“As for the city, it is no more,” he said.
“If you have relatives there, they are no more too.” 
“What is no more?” I retorted. 
He smiled. “True enough.  The lost come back in another form. 
Energy to matter, matter to energy. 
Are you ruminating on the Russian destruction of Mariupol?”

“No, I am thinking of the ocean
Around this once great city. ”
“The frothy harmony?”
“Yes. How it  mixed with sand and 
Molded about my toes when I used to
Walk along the beach
As a boy. ”
“Vastness like a universe
Slushing onto shores rhythmically, 
Even delicately? ” 
“Yes,” I said. 
“It is a mirage, you know—the harmony.”
“How do you mean? ” 
“The man drinking tea of dirt, 
Waiting for his death
In a World War I-like trench
As the Russians come for him, 
Asks what I mean. 
Take a garden or a park, nature
Reassembled by man
To look harmonious to men, 
It is a
Perilous place 
Of flood, drought, and predation
For the worm. 
Only the human mind makes
The ocean harmonious
Because it needs to.”

” And for a time
You live harmoniously within the trenches of my mind. “
” Yes, only that, ” he admitted
Before vanishing entirely. 
Alone, I drink the sullied water
That we label as “tea,” 
It’s ocean slamming
The rim of the metal cup
In my trembling hand. 

Liquid force slams upon
The shore, eroding rock
To sand, and deeper in
Were those under-tows, rogue
waves, sharks, leviathans
Of every conception. 
The mind imagines har-
Mony in oceans when
There is none.