“Shadows crept in”

by Almyr Bump

Blue cloud-shadows
chasing across
the grass a more
perfect outline
of contented
peace made real.

Hidden inside
a rusty can,
a gift designed
to maim and kill
a man of flesh.

Demon-like flash,
dust on the eye,
those white silent
people we call
the dead linger.

A dragon-fly
like a blue thread
floats on brown gauze,
wings beating air.

Sullen murmur
of the muezzin,
undisturbed by
a dog barking,
an engine not
turning over.


Almyr Bump is an infantry officer and currently works as a regional response plans officer for NORTHCOM Homeland Region I.  His work has appeared in Proud To Be, Consequence, Free State Review, and North Carolina Literary Review. He’s short, with twenty months to go until he retires.