Mercy

A Story by Coyote Poetry

(A sad poem. We need more friends. More kindness.)

Mercy

Young black man.
22 year old.
He sat alone and ate alone in the mess hall for many days.
I watched him and wondered why?

I knew great pain and understood his face and eyes.

I started to sit with him.
He said nothing for many meals.
Other Soldiers said he was crazy.

One morning at breakfast.
He looks at my eyes direct.
He told me.
“Some of the poor men were still alive at Death valley. They were still breathing.
Pieces of bodies speaking in a foreign language. I held so many of them. All I could do is listen.”

His eyes filled with tears. He asked me.
“Was there any purpose for this war?”

I looks at his sad eyes. I told him.
“You did all you could. Mercy of someone hearing your last words allow the poor men
to move to the next place with the vision a kind heart. Not the bloody shit of war.”

He got very quiet for a time. He whispers.
“All I see is death and blood in my dreams. I can’t see any good in my life now. What can I do?’”

I took him to Virginia beach. Not many people in the late months of winter.
I made him drink many long Island ice teas.
We drank till we could barely see anymore.

We wandered down to the Virginia shoreline.
He watched the Atlantic dance on the shore.

He turns to me. Asked me? “What the fuck are you trying to do to me?
Why don’t you leave me alone?

I passed the whiskey to him.
I told him. “We have been lied to. No-body care if people live or die. We were just mercenaries for money and oil. Let’s scream to the Gods. Lets scream into the wind. Tell the world to f-off. Then maybe we can find the mercy to forgive ourselves.”

He gave me a big smile. Told me. “You are damn crazy.”

He stood up and started to run down the ghostly night beach.
Screaming and crying.
He ran into the sea.
Yelling ‘kill me, end my bloody life.”

I swear I saw someone with him.
I tossed my wallet to the sand.
I went into the cold sea to get him.
He was waiting for me.

I wrapped my arms around him.
He smiles and told me. “I’m Ok.
I know I must forgive myself.

He turns and looks me in the eyes.
He whispers. “Thank you for the mercy of your friendship. No-one came when I was alone and afraid. I prayed for forgiveness. You forced me to face my life.”

He looks at the morning sun rising from the east. Told me. “I’m done with the Army. I won’t touch a gun or hurt another person.”

A month later at the Greyhound bus station he was going home. I went to shake his hand. He grabbed me and gave me a bear hug. Kissed my forehead. He told me.
“Mama will heal me with her love. Baby sister will insure I’m alright. And I remember your face and what you gave me.  You gave mercy to a man in need.”

Coyote

Dreaming of Scotland

A Poem by Coyote Poetry

For a sweet woman. I won’t forget.

                       Dreaming of Scotland

She was as pretty as a picture.
Fate had brought her to me at a dark tavern.
Her raging brown eyes.
Auburn hair across gentle and soft shoulders.
Her fragrance of flowers open my senses to her beauty.

Her Scottish accent made me wish to hear her sweet voice.

I was told to be kind to her.
Love was dead to me.
I was infected with rage and hate.

I tried to escape her beautiful face.
Drinking and trying to blind my hunger.
She found me at the tavern.

She wrapped her arms around me.
Kissed my neck, face and lips.
She whispered “Love is a powerful storm.
Please don’t speak and allow us to love.”

In the mist of softness and opening new doors to joy and bliss.
Sometime you forget to create a safety net to protect  yourself
and your sweet love.

A warm Germany summer allow two people to fall into the mercy
of a sweet love. Swim in the gifts young heart can understand .

Summer was ending.
My Scotland beauty was going home.

She told me of Scotland.
The beauty of the country and the good people.

I told her.
I wanted her forever.
I talks of marriage.

Love took my hand.
She whispered.
“We had a short time to stay together.
I allow you into my heart. Sometime words don’t mean a lot.
Love never does die. It only falls  asleep till we can open the
door again.”

She went home.
I got lost in the booze and liqueur.
Allowed the deserved load of pain to overtake my kindness.

I still went to the small lake.
And I dream of Scotland.

Coyote
2010

© 2011 Coyote Poetry

War and terror must stop. Please.

War and terror must stop. Please.
A Poem by Coyote Poetry
“
Will take a miracle. 4 billion people saying we had enough of hate and violence.
“

War and terror must stop

“The God separate a spirit from himself and fashion it into beauty.”
Kahil Gibran

The world is in dis-ray.

Few men speak of peace.

Threats and demands are many.
Men of war authorize torture without thought.

Hope is fading.
Despair is growing.

I ask God.
Where are you?
I’m weary of war.

Ancient cities are battle zones.
Love and mercy are forgotten.
Freedom of truth and spirit are fading into
“Dust in the wind.”

Diagnosis of hate and violence men speak with
words of blasphemy.
Trying to cause hysterical and fear.

Poor women and children are in the way of war.
They are the Martyr.
Guns and bombs have no mercy for the innocence.

Vast sea separate the countries in quarrels over belief
and control.

Bringing young men and woman to places where they will face
death and learn to accept missions that will scar their souls and hearts
forever.

I gaze upon the sea waiting to make a wish on the first star of the night.
I wished “Bring the Soldiers home safe and sound. All of them.
Please stop the madness.”

The sea waves danced slowly upon the quiet beach.
I closed my eyes. I make a wish upon a million stars.

“All people of this world need to stop.
We need a great gathering of people in all cities.
To stand together.
Sing songs of welcome and peace.
Open arms to take down walls of hate and pain.
Bringing friends and neighbors together.
Demanding the wars to end.
Stop the hate and violence in this world.
Guns and weapons to be put down.”

It is time for all countries to solve their own problems.
It is time for powerful countries to fix their own problems.
Leave the old places alone to heal and repair.

When a world is led by Berserkers.
Where no blood will cure their hunger.

The Berserkers with the blood thirst for oil and wealth/control.
Will not be content till nothing is left.

Nations will rise and fall.
Many Devils will come upon us preaching words of hate and turmoil.

“A eye for a eye will leave us all dead one day.
How many sons and daughters must die for us to understand.
We are just people.
Just different places with the same needs.
We want a warm bed, a safe place to live. Food for our family.”

Order of the gun must be put out of their misery.

War does not bring peace.
Create new hate and more thirst for blood and revenge.

I sat on a hill with the morning sunrise.
The sun glorious bringing in the birth of a new day.
The calmness and quiet left me feeling alone.

I prayed to the sea, the sky and the earth.
I asked the spirit of life and death.

“Bring peace to this world where hope is lost.
Separation is growing.
We need a song of peace and calm.
Not the song of death and hate.”

“We will overcome. We will overcome.
Deep in my heart.
I do believe.
We will overcome someday.

We will walk hand in hand. We will walk hand in hand.
Deep in my heart.
I do believe.
We will overcome someday.”
Martin Luther King Jr.

Coyote
“One voice can turn many toward good. Few voices of reason today.
Many excuses for war. No profit in peace.”

Ain’t no fucking good war.

 

 

Ain’t no fucking good war.

Old WW2 Vet is sitting alone.
He raise his glass to the sky.
He look at an empty seat.
To the good war my friend.
He drink his shot of whiskey.
Whisper ain’t no fucking good war.
He put his face into his hands.

Father had his ribbons and awards over the fireplace from the Korea war.
We watched war movies together.
He was the hero who always saved me.

On the weekend he would drink his rum.
Late at night I would sit with him.
He would talk to dead buddies left in the Korean dirt.
He would tell me.
No war is worth a shit.

Old Vietnam Vet is dying.
The agent orange had made him 110 pounds.
The VA won’t see him anymore.
The VA tells him nothing they can do.
I sit with him and listen.
He tells me he volunteers and was proud.
He thought he was doing the right thing.
He looks me in the eyes and whisper all my friends are dead.
I will see them soon.

What will I tell them?
Did the War have any reason?
Was it just a fucking grave filled with hate?

I try to put myself in the places where living another day is your goal.
Being hungry and needing medical care.
Watching their world fall apart around them.

I go to graves of good friends.
They died in Iraq for the hatred of the Bush’s years.
I whisper fuck these wars.

Coyote

Never again. Nie wieder. Plus jamais.

Never again. Nie wieder. Plus jamais.
A Poem by Coyote Poetry

(A old man wanted to thank a American Soldier.)


Never again. Nie wieder. Plus jamais.

(The old man spoke with tears.
Told me it must never happen again.
He  told me he watched his brothers and parent walk into death arms.
He could not do anything.)

I was sitting alone at the train station in Stuttgart.
A old man sits at my table and offered his hand.

I take it and ask what does he want?

He told on this day 33 years ago.
A American soldier broke down  the wall of  the concentration camp.
Pick him off the floor and held him.

The soldier hand fed him because he was too weak to feed himself.
The soldier took care of him for three months.
He was very weak and never ask the soldier name.

He wanted to thank a American.
By  buying a American  Soldier a  meal today.

He showed me his mark.
A tattoo he held proudly.

Forced numbers put on  men and woman showing they were  Jews.

I told him please sit with me.
I would be honor to eat with him.

I listen to stories of good times and bad.
Tears came to his old eyes when he told me.
How they separate him from his family at the train station.
He never saw them again.

His family made the mistake of hoping for common sense and sanity.

Most of his family went to Auschwitz.
He never saw them again.

He was lucky being strong and young.
He went to work camps in Germany.

He lived in Switzerland now.
He  learn to appreciate everyday being alive.
He whisper I still don’t understand the hate for us from the Germans.

I said very little.
I had great respect for this man.

He taught me what we can endure to stay alive.


His last words stays with me.

As he shook my hand.

His eyes filled with tears.

Tells me.

I  pray everyday this Never again happens again.
Nie Wieder.

He leave me sitting alone.
Thinking how hateful and cold this world can be.

 

In Monterey

In Monterey
A Poem by Coyote Poetry

(We can try to escape. Sooner or later the memory will catch up with us.)

                                In Monterey

I called you to tell you I was all right.
I don’t remember losing you so much here.
The winter days of Michigan made me sad.
Here in Monterey I never get  cold and the sun appears everyday.
I go to the ocean.
Listen to the sea lions cry.
I don’t feel so lonely.
I will stay in California.
The pain is less.
I can’t promise to forget you.
But I’m OK.
I’m safe from  the hunger to hold and touch you.
The cold of Michigan winter brings me back to your memory.
The 3000 miles will protect me.
I wonder do you miss me?
The man who tried to make you laugh.
The man who tried to love you.
Here in Monterey.
The pain is less.
Someday we will talk face to face.
Maybe on a summer day.
Coyote

She was a diamond

A Poem by Coyote Poetry

(We need to be thankful when we hold something precious in our hands.
She was a  Diamond)

20 Nov. 1994

She was a diamond
The drunk man toasts to better days.
We touched shot glasses.
I asked him.
Did he ever see a woman who shined like a diamond?
So bright  with hope and love.
She can bring you out of this hell?
My drunk friend just turns away.

I wander to a safe and quiet corner.
I remember her blue eyes.
Clear as a mountain stream.
Her flowing auburn hair.
Her beautiful smile that still can bring a smile back to me.

She was a baby in living.
I was soil with hate and disappointment.
Today I wonder why she came to me?

In a dark corner of a dancing Bar in Austin, Texas.
She came to me with a sweet smile.
She asks me.  Could I two-step a-bit?.
I told her I do my best.

She talks my ears off.
I listen to her beautiful voice.
She was full of dreams and hope.
We became friends.

She taught me laughter.
Taught me to hope and dreams again.
She was a diamond in a life.
Brought me out of my self made hell.

I may of taught her to view the world with different eyes.
She stood her ground.
Held on to her dreams.
She is something today.
Educated and helping people.

I wish to stand at a distance.
Her life loaded with real problems now.

I have hope.
A few dreams.
Maybe one day I will look into those blue eyes.
Thank her for her kindness and love.

Women are the reasons for good men to hold on to dreams.

I’m thankful.
I held a diamond in my hand.
Her hope and love overtook my heart.

Coyote