BOUGAINVILLE
(Solomon Islands, South Pacific, 1943-45 / 2010)
Thick-wristed vines have
overtaken
craters where boys thrashed
and died, the screams of spilled
guts
and incoming shells. It was the noise,
the blinding noise that
killed.
Above white beaches tamarind
and jacaranda filter sun
that coils and hammers flat
the day’s
damp heat, while distant voices
falter, gasp, go still.
Strung round the globe such
places lie,
idyllic tableaus now, while I
part easily cascades of
trumpet flowers. It is the turquoise
hour, the murmuring time
that slaughtered choices
fill.
War, Literature & the Arts (Vol. 27, 2015); see http://wlajournal.com/wlaarchive/27/Levin.pdf