by Tad Tuleja
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In the spectral North Atlantic
he plotted headings
watched for lethal fish
endured the deafening guns
for three years
and brought back home
a brass shell casing
that held pencils on his desk
for the rest of his life
reminding him why he
could no longer hear purely
the second movement
of the German Requiem
reminding him too perhaps
how his heart had swelled
to raise a sextant to Alioth
in the wastes of war
Ringing in the ears—no doubt
not as troubling
as a doughboy’s memory of whiz-bangs
or a peasant child’s memory
of cluster bombs
but to a lover of Brahms
trouble enough
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Tad Tuleja is a folklorist and songwriter with interests in the Western, honor cultures, and the mythology of violence. He holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Texas, has edited two anthologies on military culture for Utah State University Press, and received a Puffin Foundation artistic development grant for his song cycle “Skein of Arms.” He has published scholarly essays on yellow ribbons, Barry Sadler’s “Ballad of the Green Berets,” and World War I trench songs. His poems and short prose pieces have appeared in Consequence, The Road Not Taken, Adirondack Review, and War, Literature, and the Arts. In the ones he is currently preparing for a collection entitled Songs of the Radiant Earth, he aspires, in Joseph Conrad’s phrase, “to make you see.” Under the musical alias Skip Yarrow, Tuleja performs his songs on www.skipyarrow.com and on YouTube.
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