Beach Landing, Iwo Jima
They didn’t shoot at us. A silent scene
until we clogged the beach, and then–all hell,
potato masher hand grenades, machine
gun fire, artillery. I swear each shell
passed close enough you could reach up and catch
it like a ball. I crawled across black sand,
and used each corpse for cover. Don’t attach
yourself, is what I learned. Push it down and
crawl in a hole. Go numb, and you’ll survive,
maybe, as I survived. I didn’t hate
the man who charged at me with his bayonet.
I crouched and shot him dead so I could live.
But the photo in his helmet cut my heart.
A child smiling at me. And then I wept.
U.S. Marine, Iwo Jima, 1945
from Tongue of War, Tony Barnstone Tony is a friend of mine through our translation association [ALTA]. These are original to him, not translations. The are constructed from the journals, diaries, news accounts and oral histories of the (mostly) men who fought, or were caught, in the Pacific in WW II
