A Journey Into Transformation
War shapes the warriors it touches, leaving behind vestiges that linger in their lives long after the battlefield fades from view. In Recon Marines: Searching for the Real Enemy, we are thrust into the unrelenting grip of Vietnam's jungle, a landscape both indifferent and eternal. Yet the war waged in the depths of memory proves to be just as haunting. The Brothers I Carry offers an intimate glimpse into the aftermath—where silence speaks louder than words, and grief stands as a monument to those who could not remain. Together, these works explore the enduring bond of brotherhood, the weight of loss, and the quiet resilience of remembering.
Recon Marines: Searching for the Real Enemy
The jungle looms, indifferent and eternal, its breath curling around us in humid susurrations. Each step, measured and deliberate, charts the edge of survival; each shadow stretches into the abyss of possibility. We do not speak. Silence binds us, a fragile filament holding the fragments of what we are—what we’ve yet to become.
Vietnam's jungle breathes
shadows stretch with whispered truths—
fragile steps endure
We are cartographers of mortality, etching trails through soil alive with hostility. Beneath our boots, the earth resists, an adversary of muck and roots. In the nights of fire and distant cries, the enemy slips between the trees, between thoughts, assuming shapes seen and unseen. Hunger gnaws—not only at flesh, but at the marrow of purpose. Beside me, my brothers endure. Their presence is a tether to sanity, unspoken yet resolute. Together, we mark time in the cadence of shared breaths, our bond forged in heat, rain, and blood.
earth fights every step
silent bonds in fire forged
purpose wrestles grief
Through the rustling canopy, resonances seep into the jungle’s depths. Distant chants carried by Pacific winds twist among the trees, their syllables alien and strange. “Peace,” they cry—but here, peace exists only as a phantom, crouching and elusive, a shape neither tangible nor trusted. We fight two wars: one ensnaring us in the jungle’s grasp, and another waiting to unravel us in the streets of home.
canopy susurrations
chants of peace twist through the leaves—
a war with no end
When the jungle finally releases us, its grip remains. We carry it inside—its shadows stitched into the fabric of memory. The streets gape in unfamiliarity, no banners, no embrace. Instead, we are met with pointed words sharper than shrapnel: “Baby killer.” Their disdain reverberates in the tick of clocks, in arcana exchanged behind closed doors. One by one, we retreat—not just to basements or bottles (though some do), but to the quiet sanctuaries of our own minds, where silence wraps its arms around us like an old comrade. We remain brothers, bound not by the medals or the scars, but by its ghosts.
ghosts of jungle fade
streets scorn scars of brotherhood
silence binds the lost
There are maps we never traced; wounds time dared not seal. The jungle faintly fades—with its shadows watching from the precipice of memory. Semper Fi.
jungle-bound specters—
our breath a quiet harmony
of Semper Fi’s cry
The jungle recedes, but its after-effects persist—woven into the fabric of time and memory. For those who return, the battlefield follows, not in banners or glory, but in the brothers who inhabit the hollow hours. Recon Marines: Searching for the Real Enemy tells the story of survival in the thick of combat, while The Brothers I Carry turns inward, finding purpose and hope amidst profound grief. Though war severed lives, the Semper Fi bond remained—a quiet harmony binding those who could not forget with those who cannot stay.
The Brothers I Carry
I see them still, in the hollow hours,
Familiar images etched against the fading sun,
Their laughter spilled like water over stones,
Now stilled, forever caught in time's cruel snare.
umbra marks their laugh
rippling through dusk’s quiet breath
stillness holds them now
Once we stood, shoulder to shoulder,
Carrying a weight we dared not name.
We believed in the dawn,
Even as the night stretched its fingers,
Pulling them silently into its depths.
night pulls without sound
burdened shoulders bear the dark
dawn's light a faint hope
I speak their names into the wind,
A litany of sorrow, unanswered.
What claimed them—
The wars outside, or the ones within?
Their silence is thunder,
Rolling through an empty sky.
winds rustle their names
silence cracks the empty sky—
thunder lingers still
And I, the living, wear their absence,
A cloak heavy with grief.
Beneath the canopy of memory,
I walk among the breathing,
As though I, too, were unseen,
Searching for the meaning of their fall,
And the purpose of the pain left behind.
grief weaves a dense cloak
among the breathing, concealed
imprints search for truth
Yet in the quiet, hope takes hold,
Through their loss, a truth unfolds.
To honor the brothers who couldn’t stay,
I hold the pain—live for them—remember and pray.
hope rises through loss
living binds memory close—
prayers pierce the void
Copyright ©
Mickey Grubb
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