the price of memories

what outside influence

intrudes upon us surreptitiously

stealthily

stealing our breath like carbon monoxide

letting us do something we don’t want to

explain 

as the soaring price of

precious metals seeps into our consciousness

heirlooms have found their way

reversing the gold rush

to pawn shops

coin dealers

hotel lobbies

instead of into jewelry boxes

dresser drawers of nieces

or nephews 

no dust or danger

no pack horse or partner

searching for Sutter’s Mill

just a paved strip mall parking lot

and a sandwich bag of rings, lockets, chains

the remains, the props of the past

the stuff of personal history 

more than gold traded but

the memories weigh easy

on the digital scale

the tipping point, the balance

some logic that someone else

would just stake their claim 

after we’re gone 

Barry DeCarli

April 12, 2012

Copyright 2012 Barry DeCarli

similar wars

similar wars

another war ending

more guilty feelings for not

being able to pick up a gun

or a fellow soldier’s  severed hand

or memory, a letter home

some part of speech lost

this war

had less protest than that one

where we would have put a daisy

in a gun barrel

and said “ make love, not war”

and surely the feelings are different now

my reluctance hardly balances

your willingness

my comfort weighs lightly

on your sacrifice

my desire for self-preservation

is too thin a veil to obscure the generosity

of you overcoming your fear

my inability to know what I might die for

can not diminish your steadfast belief

that you were doing the right thing

yet, at the end, I am here alive

while you are number 4,487

on another list of those lost to memory

who can say thank you, now

and have it mean anything

to your family, to anyone

conscripted, enlisted or dodged
does it matter whether this war
was any more necessary than that war

will it matter or not
if your death or my life was in vain

Barry DeCarli

Ferrisburgh, VT

December, 16-18, 2011
This poem was revised on Veteran's Day 2014

Copyright 2011 Barry DeCarli 

golden

mostly
we bury the body, the bones
hair and sinew
whether we believe
or not, but wanting to
that the soul has gone on
is not there in the cold damp ground

who chooses the season to die in
when the ground will not be broken
by pick, shovel
or sorrow
but the time for waiting is gone
we carry home the remains
the gravely grey bits
of charcoal
the dust of bones
not to be buried under heavy earth
but scattered in the winds of days
and places gone by
spoken words that matter
the release of substance and spirit

mourning and rejoicing
witnessed by sun, clouds
wind and sky
true friends

seeking
promising hope
the quiet inkling of something more

Barry DeCarli
April 3 & 29, 2011
Ferrisburgh, VT
Copyright 2011 Barry DeCarli

dignity

he began reaching out
behind him
to his left side
knowing someone was there to take his hand
sensing some seriousness
as high-flow oxygen hissed
in his chapped nostrils

I am not going home
I have no clothes here

his left hand moved toward his forehead
we thought he was in pain
and called for a nurse

but, maybe he was just trying to remember
struggling to pull just one
more memory out
a lucid argument that would allow him to live
a little while longer

the morphine delivered
a detached, dreamy comfort
as the demands of his body
diminished one by one

when finally
the promise of his soul
let him go

Barry DeCarli
October 8, 2010
Copyright 2010 Barry DeCarli