Drowning the Ocean (bleaching the white noise)

Their marching is hushed like whispers or rumors.

The synchronized stomping of feet sounds like thousands of clocks ticking toward

a moment of silence.

The soldiers are pawns in a war much like watches can't run backwards.

Ordered to march, so the soldiers march until they are told to halt but that order

never comes.

They march all the way to ocean cliffs where they drop off like seconds lost in sleep.

All they have been told is the ocean is a problem long unresolved.

Even before they take that first step in unison their uniforms are empty.

Armed hollow shells of soldiers marching toward the sea like days are powerless

to not follow each other toward the apocalypse.

No heads sprouting from the collars, no fists clinched at the end of sleeves means

no hands to shake, no faces to remember.

Point them in the direction of those cliffs, wait for the sound of the waves

to dissipate as the soldiers fill the ocean.

Wait until this solution is no longer the desired variable but the new constant

that needs solved.

Wait until you can't tell who is winning, when you can't discern quiet marching

from waves breaking against rocks, when they are the same thing.

Joseph Kerschbaum lives in Bloomington, Indiana. His latest book, Dead Stars Have No Graves, was published by Pathwise Press in 2006. Joseph’s new spoken word album, Our Voices Sound Like Silence, will be released this November.