Beyond everything unreal
Nothing is the only verity

– finding a blind spot
of a mortar shell

lighting the pilot light
as the sniper’s eye blinks –

Crazed calculations
Courting involuntary muscles

– as if the body could absorb
the blow and make the brain

disown the pain when the entrails
rise ethereal like batter dough

and a salty crust begins to form
on the burning shivering lips –

The mind striving in vain
To reason with the stomach

– you peer through the oven
window and there’s nothing

except a hissing sound and
a fermented breathing essence

that for a moment makes you believe
there must be something beyond nothing –

But what’s that got to do
With snipers with snipers and mortar shells:

Nothing if you haven’t been there

© 2006 Mario Suško

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