MEMORIAL DAY
He could have been my father
but for grace of something
without a proper name —
that corpse on the road
between Lashio and Kunming,
there beside the Temple
of the Thousand Hands. Hot sun
and vultures circling — just
a kid who stepped in front
of a sniper’s bullet. Those hills
were full of bandits with no
particular allegiance. They made
another gold star
to put up in a window somewhere —
maybe in Kentucky, maybe
the Bronx, and years later
someone will open a box and find
a faded photo. And they’ll tell
a story half-true and half
remembered. He was not,
as I say, my father, who went home
on a plane and not in a box,
but they may have sung
the same songs, there,
on the road from Lashio across
the hills to Kunming.
“I’ll be seeing you …”
_______________________________________________________________________________________
WHEN
We hang holiday lanterns
in tents because our homes are rubble
beside the sea — we light
candles in sterile hotel rooms —
we shout and no-one listens,
call and no-one answers —
the sound of trucks drowns out
our baby’s cries — groves
of olives go up in flames —
men with closed faces turn
their backs to burrow underground —
we have run out of coffins —
even the birds avoid our sky.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
WHERE WE SIT FOREVER
The world is a House of Mourning
where no-one can trust the undertakers
and the pall-bearers are overworked,
underpaid, weary. All these coffins
are heavy-laden, even the ones
made to hold children. Each filled
with stones. Somber crepe
drapes our doors. If you look
closely, you’ll see how the fabric
has faded, frayed by too many winds.
All the funeral wreaths wilt
and dry up before a single name
can be engraved upon a single stone.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
PALE
For Paul Celan
And ghostly, the forgotten horses.
A field of sharp stones.
They are chanting.
No sky, no ocean, and yet —
A broken nursery rhyme.
In a place of no promises, the sun.
Skeleton dreamers.
They say there will still be time for this.
Even when time has ended.
Even when there are no more ghosts.
W. Luther Jett is a native of Montgomery County, Maryland and a retired special educator. His poetry has been published in numerous journals as well as several anthologies. He is the author of six poetry chapbooks: “Not Quite: Poems Written in Search of My Father”, (Finishing Line Press, 2015), and “Our Situation”, (Prolific Press, 2018), “Everyone Disappears” (Finishing Line Press, 2020), “Little Wars” (Kelsay Books, 2021), “Watchman, What of the Night?” (CW Books, 2022), and “The Colour Wars”, which has just been released by Kelsay Books. His full-length collection, “Flying to America” was released by Broadstone Press in spring, 2024.