Thursday (explication of what came to be "I'll Come See You" the poem)

I don't know how you read it, but this is how I meant it.

Knock the slag off, with air piston jacked hammers.

When I kicked this off, the intent was to put something down in writing that was blunt force enough to make me need to go further to explain it because I know I do paint myself into corners, at least I feel that I do, to add clarity to what I say.  From that spark, the spark of shedding light, everything else developed.

Sitting on a crate opposite you
sitting on another,
printed in yellow block stencil
underneath, 98 mm high explosive x 75.

From that spark I imagined our meeting.  What I said before about knocking off slag with jack hammers was a reference to work.  From that reference, I immediately jumped into the warzone of language and how often times that is how I view my relationship with the world outside of me.  It really is a, put it on whatever scale you want to, some kind of war and this blog is a bit of a foxhole and we are literally sitting on our mental ammunition boxes. 

Underneath my ass 150 mm
aye pee
times 30.  My feet dangling like our cigarette's
smoke mingling on a windless afternoon.

This verse is kind of a wink and a nod because I do avoid actually smoking as much as possible, but I vape pretty hard.  The main thing about it though is that I am prone to large gauge action while most people are happy to work with suppressing fire.  My actions are much more leaned toward "kill them all in one sweep of gun barrel barking."  I can go accurate, but it is much more fun to swamp them in flames the way I have been.  Hence, the large gauge ammo underneath my bum and the smaller gauge, but still deadly, ammunition box underneath the interpolated.

The front is 220 miles out
East as the crow flies.
We will have to refuel
over the mediterranean
and I am looking forward to seeing
how you do it.

This is where we bring in the mechs and how the mechs will get to the front lines, where the action is happening and a short reference to how we wage ware once we get there.  This is a reference to the fact that what is about to happen is not new to either of us.  We know exactly where it is and what needs to be done to get there.  And also speaks to the fact that we have no problem with how the mission succeeds as long as it succeeds.

Our conversation has already broken down
into objectives and way points with a little
bet mixed in to the after action report.

This verse simply speakes to the fact that we've been there before.  Our conversation does not need to be enumerated here, only indicated, hinted at, ellipsed.   We've done it so many times that the only thing that needs to be done is counting up how many people, targets, installations, were destroyed by the time we succeeded.

It is unfair
to where we land and to whom we mount against,
because they are not in on the game.

Again, this verse is a reference to the previous verse, assuming we both got back home after the operation safe and sound 

Us both waiting for the KA-CHUNK
of couplings leaving us in free fall
to where our bombardier's decided
we could do our best
against the populace.

This verse is a credit to the people who get us to the target zone and an acknowledgement that we do not neccessarily know who exactly it is we are going up against inside of our mechs, however.  However we have full faith that they, the pilots and/or controllers of our evening will not drop us into a situation that our equipment and skills directly related to our equipment cannot handle well, if not outright destroy them.

A little cheers of coffee.
A little double check of flight suits.
Is the mic where it needs to be?
Trial fit the helmet again
after a quadruple check;
be sure the reticle is in line.
Double check my nail polish
before the glove comes on.
Smash shoulders and opposing tattoos,
before the top of the flight suit
is zipped on.

This is an inside joke to a close friend who helped me tattoo myself.    It is part inside joke and part coffee joke.  "the best way to start your day" when you are going over your manifest for the day.  You know whatever it is that is required of your skills will take all of your skills and you have to be sure when the time comes to pull the trigger, that trigger cannot fail, take practice shots.

Finish the coffee, with pills in our mouths.
They will learn what we live for,
they will learn what is loud.

They will learn that you do need coffee and that you do live for challenges and that you do know what horrible drugs are and that you are not about it.

Our flights will be long.  I'll sleep inside the mech
along the way.  I don't know what happens to you
while we wait out the sandbox for play.
The thup thup thup thup thup thup
I can hear, because I never turn off
the audio input once I am strapped in.

We both understand how to get to the battlefield.  I don't understand how you are so calm.  I feel like you've been here before and I have not.

For me, it is a very long long long grin
to watch you work.  Guilty.

You know I have not been there before but youare looking forward to my struggling.

Watching, zone cleared against spear chuckers
who happened to have come into
a fushionable pile
and needed reckoning before
something terrible happened,
you break out a "grenade"
two tons strong and willing to-\
-/Christ, where is the pin?

A mixture of edge of tommorrow and starship troopers the book.  In Starship Troopers the book they had miniature nukes.  Miniature nukes could clear an entire area as long as they got clear. In edge of tomorrow the whole deal was differremt.  

Mech against mech.  Dust to dust.
Die another day.
Why can you not understand I do
feel the same?

This is myself, dropped onto this planet trying to stop you and yrtying to fighht you hardcore because what I would like to do is save everyone but I cannot.  What I would also like to do is kill everyone but I can also cannot.  I'm good with figthing you though.  I am good with where you RE COMING FROM.

Fire the shell in my mechanized palm
to fire it just that strong
and knock it four miles out
to change the time of day from moonlit to
high noon in a fire ball that could eat city blocks,
but she's in the air.  Fair.  But "what the f@#$?"

Apologies, but I turned the palm and the gun built in to accelerate  it against the what?  The elbow cannon that went off and blew the palm muzzle off to an odd degree shot it off toward the dark horrizon and it lit up like noon day.

Overkill.........  underneath your left foot,
underneath your left pedal inside your cockpit and
underneath you left foot outside your cockpit
you are grinding human flesh into a paste.  And now is
the fucking time.
Do you remember being small?  I do.
You don't get conscripted by chance.

Hearing him over the comm, realizing that the action he just did with the arm of his mech just required him to smush some people with the foot of his mech....

You find detonators.  You stumble upon detonators.
Land mines   Mines.  I've never met a land mine like you.

Me on the ground amongst the  flattened human beings trying to offer encouragement to my friend (the other pilot) while shaking my head at the damage he did without thinking about the power at his fingertips.

I will know how to move forward
regardless ,after you.
Everyone talks big.  Yack, yack, yak yak yak, waaaan.

Him trying to make another move and myself watching, back in my own mech while our communicators crackle and guns go boom.

Cruiser.  Angry.  There was someone else here.  I will find them, sonavubitch.  Fail.  My fault.    Reset.

Reset.

Reset.

Reset.

Me trying to wipe my memory and undo the entire operation in my head.  Each reset a muzzle flash.

Clutch in.  Match revs. Time to the light.  Gas pedal.  Clutch out.
Release brake.
Gas pedal down.

Slowly.

Burnout.

Me, over the comm link trying to coach him and failing, instead focusing on what I can do.  The work.