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is this life

is this life my life

if this life is my life where is my other life the one from before

my horseman was not headless bodiless sometimes but not headless

. . .

sometimes I remember my parents

more distinctly more vividly than main characters in the best books I’ve ever read

I remember them deeply sometimes

. . .

the curse I always remember

perhaps that is the body of the headless Flemish soldier

there were so many dead after each battle and in the streets and back allies

I hated to go outside

. . .

and yet here I am in this life

voracious for more

from middle year poems — Bill Eberle

October 2017     © 2017, Bill Eberle

The Eberle name is from Flanders and bordering areas in Germany. The headless Flemish soldier and the following stanzas are images from an earlier time, a time when war flooded Flanders and its neighbors.