What I Want for Joshua
What I Want for Joshua
1
Bruegel’s The Vice and the Virtues
is cluttered with battle carnage. Even
the the noble seem sullied & trapped. Eleven
engravings & in all of them I can’t
tell the good guys from the bad,
especially in the one titled Courage,
where warriors chase & impale
imps & demons rather than human
foes. Showing their mettle
they march blindly into a creepy
freestanding blob that looks like a living
stomach–no way out. It goes
2
without saying that when my cousin
Joshua saw combat in Afganistan
it took courage but it was a blind
hard bravery that smacked
back, a long trail
of wild. He seemed fine. Everyone
so proud & complimentary. Welcome
home. Thank you
for your service. The track
lines were there but I didn’t
want to see them & when he began
nodding off at the Home Team Grille
during major league playoffs I figured
he was healing, needed rest, more
time. He slept with a pistol, quit
teaching Sunday school, lost
30 pounds. It goes
without saying it took guts for him
to protect his unit. They
were more family than family
& when the IED detonated,
obliterating two buddies, delimbing
three others, you can understand
why he felt guilty & why
he thought he needed to double
down & reenlist. The first overdose
caught us by surprise & naturally
by the fourth stint in detox we’d gotten
used to the drill. Learned to hide
the diamonds & opals, family
silver, In Bruegel’s
4
etching, in the right hand
corner, there’s a hint
of possible deliverance where a tall
ship on the horizon glides
away. Bruegel has made the way
difficult to see. One night
during a clean patch Joshua broke
down. Said the worst thing is being
seen as weak & to survive his Army
pals felt unbearable like dozens of rusty
nails puncturing his heart. I have no
idea how to help, no one
seems to. I think of Bruegel
who saw little hope in this fallen
world & who pointed
to the heavenly for redemption, but even
Bruegel in his world of fiends
& hellions presented one corner
of liberation where a tall
ship slowly sailed unexpectedly off
the canvas and into a new adventure.
9 thoughts on "What I Want for Joshua"
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I adore how you use ekphrasis as a tool to talk about Joshua, interlocking the two worlds of his struggle with his mind, the war, and substance abuse with Bruegel’s faintest glimmer of a leap off the canvas – so to speak – into beatitude. This is an amazing piece of work Linda. I’m on the verge of tears.
This poem made me love Joshua, his Army buddies, his family, and you. Now I go search for Bruegel to find that corner of hope the poem directs us to.
Thanks so much. It’s hard to find! I hope I didn’t hallucinate it.
using art to deal with pain is like therapy. we abstract what our nation has done to our young and to other people in the world then it hits home with our own family: powerful piece
Here is the piece of art. I guess the ship is toward the right hand corner but more towards the middle. I might need to change the way I phrased it.
http://www.pasqualeart.com/brueghel/art/Bruegel_SevenVirtues.jpg
I echo Manny. Amazing.
What a complex and rich poem. I defer to what others have said–thecweaving between narrative and ekphrasis is masterful.
One of your best toggling poems. What a rich, distinctive style you’ve developed.
What a powerful poem. Heartbreaking, Love the way you break a sentence to continue one stanza to the next.