In 1991, I wrote a short story that took until 2005 to get published, in Apollo’s Lyre (now defunct; here’s my meager-yet-humble list of credits, listing its publication), Nov 2005. It was about a displaced Civil War soldier’s spirit and involved cemeteries, the pissed-off dead, and the Second Battle of Bull Run (aka Second Manassas, to the South, fought August 28-30, 1862). Here are some monument images. I was inspired by visiting the Bull Run battlefields, in Manassas, Virginia. I’ve since been there three times, but it was that first time that was my own personal Twilight Zone experience. I’ve written about this experience once, before, on my website. What happened besides my childhood experiences was that the very first time I ever set foot on Bull Run battlefield soil, was that I immediately felt “torn in time.” I literally felt as if I were in two places at one time: one foot in the 1990-present, and the other in 1862. And it persisted the entire time I visited the battlefield. It wasn’t subtle, or “am I really feeling this?” kinda thing. It was powerful, creepy, and physically electrifying. Life jarring.
I knew I’d been here before, and not as a visitor to a battlefield memorial.
And in my visit there, I stopped by a small plot of gravestones. So, that cemetery plot, coupled with my Twilight Zone experience of literally feeling displaced in time and space, gave rise (pardon the pun…) to the story I wrote. Within that story I’d written “displaced” stanzas of a prose poem recited by the battlefield dead coming after my displaced soldier’s spirit. I’ve compiled them below, and worked on a more coherent, completed version.
I hope you don’t sleep well after reading it.
Etched in stone
Etched in stone…
Take your place
among the bone.
Etched in stone
Is writ the tome
To one whose life
Has left the bone.
To one who fought
To one who fled…
To one who denies
His place among the dead.
They call you back
You never go far
The grave of yours
Is the grave of all.
You try to run
You try to roam
But you must always, always
Always come home.
Etched in stone
Back with bone
Home is home
And bone is bone.
Etched in stone
Etched in stone
Take your place
among the bone.
Etched in stone
Etched in stone
Back to bone
You find yer home.
Etched in stone
Etched in stone…
Take your place among the bone.