Concrete Cathedral

Poetry by J. Raymond Bennett. "The bunker shook amid the thud of counterfire, / sand gritted through the cracks of our cathedral / where camel spiders worshipped, / trailing our shadows like monks."

Author’s Note: Absurdity exists during indirect fire while waiting for the all clear. You’re surrounded by imperfect people that you’ve learned so much about. “Concrete Cathedral” celebrates but does not sanctify these people as they exist within moral uncertainty, fear, adrenaline, and the complexity of the wait.

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Reading by J. Raymond Bennett

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The bunker shook amid the thud of counterfire,
sand gritted through the cracks of our cathedral
where camel spiders worshipped,
trailing our shadows like monks.

Each thud, thud, thud accompanied
the silence of angels around me.
I squatted in Kevlar and little else,
faces pale and dirty, sweat dripping
like tears from stone—
marbled visages backlit with halos.

Baker cheated on his wife,
though he called her every night.
Davey lied whenever he could,
but never on the things that mattered.
Maria stole from white morale boxes,
yet her words still sounded like gospel.

All of them angels within our church,
waiting with me for the moment to atone.

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J. Raymond Bennett is a poet and veteran with deployments to the Middle East, South America, and the Horn of Africa. He resides in Syracuse, New York, with his son and German Shepherd, Terra. His work has appeared in The Wrath-Bearing Tree, Rockvale Review, ISSUED: Stories of Service, Behemoth Magazine, and Constellations. He writes about the mess.

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