October Poem by Phillip Erb

Streaming, incandescent, amber light from the burning tip of my cigarette draws / My thoughts to the letter left on the desk that I swore today I was going to send / As the Earth moves the calendar in a begrudgingly slow and painful pace to pass / Through the sanctioned days of celebration to remember how blood looked plain black / Instead of red beneath moonless night as it run over the ground in the name of Revolution – when shadows lay alongside the soldiers thick as mud.