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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.