Poetry

Gerald Wagoner

The Cost of Powder

Heartbreak is the business of war, therefore accountants order generals to audit the cost of powder; remind them to conquer

their quavering reticence to abuse children in order to shatter the certainty of eight year olds, so the hired Hessians will pointedly

bayonet captives against trees to scrimp on shot. How glorious or dreadful it may have seemed that late August day when ten thousand

bellied sails on sloops, frigates ships-of-the- line, each rated and arrayed, entered the wide bridgeless bay shepherding merchantmen laden

with troops and supplies that overnight sprouted into a nightmare forest of bristly black masts poised to quash the rebellion. There was yet

no tired tidal canal with its ebb and flow shored between queasy green timber, salt gnawed concrete, and stones, grime stained, subverted on the tides

to collapse repeatedly into their own modest unmarked mass graves in which the accreting sediment muck continuously buries sunken

fasces of bones, stained and bundled, further from our memory, unless random emissions of methane gas interrupt the reverie of my loafing, here, on the rail.

Gerald Wagoner (b. Pendleton, Oregon, 1947), earned a BA in creative writing from the U of Montana in 1970 and an MFA in sculpture from SUNY Albany, NY in 1983.  Since 1984 Gerald has resided in Brooklyn, NY where he exhibits, draws, and writes poems that explore loss, longing, and transformation alluding often to the historic patterns and instances that shape his poetic imagination. Publications: 2018 Right Hand Pointing #122, #125,  2019:  #132 2019 Ocotillo Review July v. 3.2 2019 Passager Journal, Contest Issue