War and Pieces of Reality

War and Pieces of Reality

Brian Turner's poetry is not based on distant observations of the horrors of war. It is based on his own experiences. According to David Whetstone, who interviewed the poet in 2008, "Brian Turner - born in 1967 - spent seven years in the U.S. Army, including a year in Iraq as an infantry team leader and, before that, in Bosnia" (18). His experiences not only shaped his life, but also his creative expression. Two poems in particular, Here, Bullet and Sadiq, show the depth of bitter emotion that emerges when Turner recalls his experiences overseas fighting for his country.

In Here, Bullet, Turner's disgust for the violence of war is presented as an aggrieved offering. "If a body is what you want," he spews, "then here is bone and gristle and flesh." He is addressing the bullet, but the bullet is symbolic of the government and the military. By giving the bullet the ability to have wishes, desires and agendas, Turner is using both personification and symbolism. It may be the bullet that is physically snapping his clavicle and ripping open the valves of his aorta, but it is ultimately his country -- the one he vowed to protect and honor -- that is tearing him apart. He is expressing his anger that he was sacrificed so easily by his own government, as if his life matters no more than a piece of shrapnel.

When asked why he joined the military, Turner admits that he was ignorant to the depths of the tragedies he would witness and experience. He tells David Whetstone, "I come from a long tradition of military service, Nearly every male in my family has been in the services and some of the women. I think I was very interested, from when I was young, in seeing what it was all about. Of course I was naive" (18).

When soldiers like Turner first don their uniform, they are still under the impression that war is a glorious thing and they are on their way to becoming a hero. However, once they experience the blood and the violence and the loss and the gore, they inevitably suffer the type of disillusionment that Turner expresses in his poetry.

In Sadiq, the resentment from Turner's disillusionment is equally powerful. He wishes that the government bigwigs who were responsible for sending him off to war could experience what he has experienced: "It should make you shake and sweat, nightmare you, strand you in a desert of irrevocable desolation." The irrevocable desolation that he speaks of has become a permanent fixture in his life, because once you go through the types of horrific events that Brian Turner has gone through, there is no turning back to your original, naive and unscarred self. As he makes clear in Sadiq, "the consequences [are] seared into the vein"

The language and tone of both poems is very similar. They both seem to be presenting a dare, a challenge; a throwing down of the gauntlet, so to speak. One could almost picture the speaker of the poem in a WWF ring screaming "come on -- is that all you got!" At his opponent and the raving crowd. In Here, Bullet, Turner seethes

And I dare you to finish what you've started. Because here, Bullet,

here is where I complete the word you bring hissing through the air,

Similarly, in Sadiq, it is almost as if Turner has painted a portrait of raging fist shaking in the air with his words:

no matter what adrenaline feeds the muscle its courage, no matter what god shines down on you, no matter what crackling pain and anger you carry in your fists, my friend, it should break your heart to kill.

The tone is extremely confrontational and angry, the descriptions in both poems are very graphic and gory, and the rage behind the words in each verse is exceedingly evident.

Ultimately, it is the last line of Sadiq that stirs the greatest amount of emotion in the reader. Despite all the graphic, inventive detailed descriptions of the physical suffering and the mental anguish Turner has endured, in the end, it is the cliche, metaphoric image of a breaking heart that sends the strongest message. It should break any human being's heart to kill, and those who are not emotionally torn up by taking another human being's life are therefore, essentially heartless.

There is also an indication in Here, Bullet, that it is not only the heart that malfunctions in the throes of death and killing, but the brain as well. When Turner speaks of "the leap thought makes at the synaptic gap" he is symbolizing the leap a person's mind is forced to make from have a respect for life and compassion for mankind to suddenly believe that it is okay to kill, maim and torture in the name of your country. Thus from Turner's point-of-view, after being forced make this mental leap himself, soldier's cannot survive a war without being both mentally and emotionally damaged. Even if their flesh is in tact, their mind and their soul have been permanently injured.

Turner represents this concept metaphorically in Here, Bullet when he begins to see himself as the weapon from which the bullet emerges. He is no longer made of flesh and cartilage, he is made of cold, hard metal like the killing 'machine' he has become. This is abundantly evident in the following lines:

here is where I moan the barrel's cold esophagus, triggering my tongue's explosives for the rifling I have inside of me, each twist of the round spun deeper,

The "barrel's cold esophagus" is a way of symbolizing the amalgamation of human parts and weapon parts, therefore demonstrating the poet's gradually growing inability to distinguish himself from a man who kills from an inanimate object that kills. This growing confusion has made his fiery rage confront his emerging coldness. His tongue is exploding -- he is spitting anger and resentment and pain out of his mouth (and ultimately his pen). Yet at the same time, he can feel the rifle's chamber spinning deeper and deeper inside him, turning his blood to liquid metal and his warm heart to a dark, cold, empty chamber.