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Shan State Suite: IV. Scenes from the front

from The Front Lines of the War by Scott Ezell • Will Klingenmeier

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lyrics

iv. Scenes from the front

Drinking Myanmar beer
in the conflict zone
where the Myanmar army is the enemy,
a pickup passes by
Shan soldiers in back
driving to the front
assault rifles raised like scepters
kings of the moment for sure
when any moment
breakfast could spill
from their guts through broken skin,
no helmets or flak jackets,
everybody squinting at the sky
for signs of fighter jets.

❖

Hilltop outpost,
looking down upon a valley,
rice fields quilt the earth
between the army lines,
.50 cal. machine gun
pointed at the sky
waiting for God to appear
in the form of a helicopter gunship and
fill everyone’s belly with stars—

a soldier sits on a crate of ammo,
grenade launcher between his knees,
stroking the comb
of a rooster,
its wing metallic orange and green,
eyes half-closed
his lips touch its beak
fingers circle its neck
like he wants to take it with him
when he falls
through the muck and trash
of the perimeter trench
to a vault of eternity—

but he opens his hand,
sets the rooster on the ground
walks down a slope
and takes a spit of meat
from a burned-out fire,
pulls a piece off with his teeth,
and sits down
on the ammo crate
to chew.

❖

Riding shotgun
in a pickup to the front,
a dozen soldiers in back
bristle with automatic weapons,
a naked pregnant woman
walks down the road,
matted hair, black peeling skin, cackling
to some god or ghost
the rest of us can’t see.
Her insanity makes perfect sense to me
in this sanitized genocide
where villages are bombed,
monasteries strafed,
the government mounts systemic rape campaigns,
and Chambers of Commerce
lobby to have sanctions lifted,
to open markets
as if a greater volume of extraction, trade, consumption
is all we need to put the world right—

an old woman with silver hair
in a blue Shan tunic
sweeps a farmhouse yard
as troops march by in clouds of dust
and a livestock truck groans by,
three oxen in back,
a Batman sign cut in the hood as an engine vent—
driving between the army lines,
moving animals
from the war
that comes like fog
devours everything
then moves on
leaving bones and teeth.

❖

Sitting with an officer, half a dozen
grenades strapped to his chest,
speaking pidgin Mandarin
drinking whisky
eating roast pork
in the shadow of a gold pagoda
beneath a banyan tree,
government troops 200 yards away,
two kittens, one tabby, one black,
play in the grass by my feet,
as we wait for airstrikes that haven’t come,
a quiet day in the war—
he offers me a tin of Danish sugar cookies,
fills my cup and says,
“It’s too late to fight today,
have another drink!”

Farmers take their oxen out to graze
on short stiff stalks of
harvested rice fields,
bells around their necks
toll in the autumn air
between two lines of hills
between the front lines of the war.

credits

from The Front Lines of the War, released August 10, 2021

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Will Klingenmeier Denver, Colorado

An omnivore of sound, lover of monophonic plainchants, noise, and the dérive, Will Klingenmeier has spent the last fifteen years living as a borderline hermit developing a distinct sonic palate. He is a sound artist placing emphasis on indeterminacy, code, field recordings and synthesis. ... more

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