R. D. Roy

Poems

These Tattoos | Road to Havana | Comfort | With Lisa before the Bell Tolls

With Lisa Before the Bell Tolls

After revisiting Hemmingway's
For Whom the Bell Tolls

We were all there
in it together
on the side of a mountain
with the mist of morning
before a battle
inside of my dream
last night

In the valley below
the enemy waits
-a phalanx of fascists
and we wait
for the signal to descend
with our dew- wet weapons
our dry mouths
and drumbeat hearts

I look to my left
along our line
to measure the steel
of the others
trying to decide
who among them
might break

For what we are doing
is incomplete
The rifles being only
a desperate solution
And we all want the dying
to be less
than the killing

Then to my right I find you
fear choked but steady
You
who does not hide
behind convenience
or lie to be free
And I know deep
in the helix of my being
this one
I can trust

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