sniper lesson (4)
Aug 31, 2010 · No comments
draw the enemy
draw the enemy out.
who said any of this
would be easy?
no muscle flinch,
word. silence.
still. still.
still. the adder within.
but listen to hiss.
the coolness of his skin.
do not feed
never feed him
strike. feel
nothing
only the satisfaction
of remorselessness.
— smsteele
wadi (5)
Aug 29, 2010 · No comments
you signed on for every patrol you could.
your death wish. that you’d step. on metal/plate/wires.
sierra echo out. done. finished. black. gone.
me to you on Sat. phones, “smarten up. smarten up.
stop that crazy talk. there are good years. still to come.
the baby waiting to be born” but you couldn’t hear.
your heart. brain-dead. too many years of sleep dep.
dread. your ears so filled with far too much.
you couldn’t hear “I love you” sanded soft
between our words. words planed. words turned.
then today I understood. rode my bike hard
into the season. turning leaves like salt. in the forest.
on the gravel. path. without you I didn’t care
to stop. wished cars would T-bone my heart.
over-filled. the heavy rains. a wadi green. unstill.
— smsteele
Suffield tree
Aug 27, 2010 · No comments
they say l sing the dead
my worthless words so damned
needy; my fingers grasp, tap
a lidded laptop
like roots into hard, dust-bowl soil;
I am alone, I am scorched,
like the roots of that tree
razor-wired, I am shadeless,
like that tree
in the desert of Suffield,
down the long gravel
road, into the valley,
the valley that casts
no shadow, that valley
where boys I once knew
laughed. boys that are gone,
cannot return. boys I saw last
a maple leaf cinched and strapped
their country’s embrace, their mother’s
embrace, the kiss, last kiss
on their grave. that kiss so warm
so cold. they say I sing the dead
but I am so damned alone,
like that tree at Suffield.
razor-wired. rootless.
cannot sing.
— smsteele
what I did not expect
Aug 26, 2010 · No comments
today, Suffield. the field. the rolling, beginning of the Cyprus hills. the pronghorns I saw first in spring 2009. before everything changed. gone. my old life. comfort.
I wore a shalwaar kameez, a veil. comforting. the gauzy cloth keeping the dirt, the gaze of others from my face. and cool in today’s 40 C heat. desert clothes are perfect for dry, hot prairie in August.
I saw a different army in play. different camo, different guns, but also the same. all soldiers are soldiers.
and these, young. so young. fresh out of battle school. their faces, soft under all that dirt, scissored my day.
because I saw him. one of the young ones I knew back in ’09. his face soft under all that dirt. alive. I saw him in all of their faces. the one I witnessed brought home. the piper piping Flowers of the Field. his mother. his father. his brother. we all brought him home.
then weariness settled like Suffield’s weird green dust. on me. and no amount of tears seem to be able to wipe it off.
— smsteele
suffield redux
Aug 26, 2010 · No comments
heading into the box. one of the most loathed. the green dust. the inevitable sickness. (if you don’t get sick on an Ex. at Suffield you haven’t really been to Suffield it seems).
should be interesting to see another side. of this war. this time, British.
— smsteele
before the storm (wadi 3)
Aug 22, 2010 · No comments
my truck over the Texas cattlegate. ta da ta da da
through the grasslands before storm, the air warm
gooey grey, the peregrines grounded, the golden eagle,
grounded,the ferruginous hawk, grounded. all grounded
like Apaches, Chinooks, Hercs, the BF Russian
transports grounded. before a metal storm.
ennui sets in. all is heavy. before prairie
lightening. an impatience. lourd. this is waiting.
waiting. for the wadi to fill. it is still and green.
slimy. her shadow is an oily shadow. cut from algae.
face down she lay.
and I was once that girl.
floating. my black hair a grassy halo.
face down. my father found me before.
it was too late. ran. for me. shouted. for me.
I should have drowned. as our three have been drowned.
Edwin,
Courtenay,
Chris.
the soldiers ran. dropped weapons. handed.
help. were helpless to save.
this baby girl. her Kuchi dress
ballooning. stagnant water.
was hand
sewn.
— smsteele
wadi (2)
Aug 21, 2010 · 1 comment
late August. I ride my bike through the village. the little French village on the edge of the heart. the heart of this generous continent.
the smoke, BC’s forest fires, exhalation, the choked lungs of too much summer heat, lightening storm, the lit grass, the forest crackle. burn burn. the smoke screen. like a thousand thousand smoke grenades. is gone. now only that blue. no, not only. only will not do. it is the prairie
sky. blue as beloveds’ eyes.
how lovely. the hot wind. how lovely my bones, my body warmed young. on a bicycle. through the white grasses. the still green hills soft as breasts. the wide prairie, the belly. the river valley that place of beginning.
when I die, could it be sweetly in this valley, just to begin again. here?
the black horse has moved on. the irrigation ditch has drained into puddle. gone the bright green water my child and I dangled our July feet into. the flood gates are open.
the black horse has moved on. unlike its brother at the Arghandab. tethered forever in soldiers’ memories. the wadis slimed green. the child floating floating. facedown. some horrible dream soldier will carry to his grave.
her tiny dress waving waving. embroidered. mirrored. little celebration.
gone.
— smsteele
Sniper Lesson 3 (Audio)
Aug 20, 2010 · No comments
The latest installment of the WarPoet podcast featuring poems read by the author, Suzanne Steele.
Sniper Lesson
— smsteele
Welcome
WarPoet.ca is one of smsteele's Canadian Forces Artist Program projects. Through text, audio, images, video and contributions by Canada's military personnel, warpoet.ca examines and records the contemporary Canadian war experience. More →
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War Poet in the Media
- War Poet BBC Interview
An interview with Suzanne Steele, Canada’s War Poet. Broadcast on the BBC World Service Newshour on October 24, 2008.
- CBC Interview - October 30, 2008
Anna Maria Trimonte of the CBC interviews Suzanne Steele, writer and Canada’s War Poet.
- smsteele On the Loss of Lt. Andrew Nuttall, CBC January 10, 2010
An interview and reading of On the Loss of Lt. Andrew Nuttall with smsteele on All Points West on CBC Radio 1. January 10, 2010.
- Interview on CBC Saskatchewan - Nov 9, 2009
This is an interview smsteele gave to CBC Sask.‘s Kelley Jo Burke on Nov. 9th, 2009 following the death of Lt. Justin Boyes. She reads some of the piece she wrote for Lt. Boyes.
- Interview on CBC Saskatchewan - August 2009
This is a reading of Elegy for an Infantryman read by smsteele and an interview with Bonnie Austring-Winter of Saskatchewan CBC. Recorded at Kenosee Lake, Sask. August, 2009.
- Interview on CBC Sound Xchange - Nov 2009
This is the third installment of smsteele’s interviews with Bonnie Austring-Winter and broadcast Nov. 9th 2009 on CBC radio Sound Xchanges. smsteele speaks in detail about the war artist program, her experience with the infantry, her “training”, and reads Elegy unbroken.
- CBC Interview - November 11, 2008
On Remembrance Day 2008, Suzanne Steele was interviewed by Laurie Hoogstraten on CBC Radio Noon. Here’s a recording of the interview.
- CJBK Radio Interview - May 2010
Suzanne interviewed by Alan Coombs, CJBK, London in the Afternoon, in early May 2010.
- CBC Radio Interview - June 21, 2010
Suzanne Steele on CBC Radio Edmonton, interviewed by Peter Brown.