Deadly Theme

  Brian Turners poems in "Here, Bullet", are all intriguing tales of a very misunderstood war, but there is the common theme among most of death, Its not fear of death, but the yearning or calling for it, as if Turner has accepted it completely. The interesting part is it never begins or seems like its every about his own mortality, but more of those around him who have already past.
the real emotional sense of these deathly poems though is he connects these dead to himself and actually seems to wish he was in their position. In "Autopsy", he describes a mortician performing an autopsy on a recently deceased Staff Sergeant. She plays an dark, uplifting song about dark clouds braking, as she proceeds to carefully cut out his heart and ponder on the extensive emotion that once filled that organ. Turner states how like everything else, his heart will be given to the earth as ash then relays how lucky those are who make it back to her operating table. He is saying how many who di in war are never found, buried were they fell, or many never got the respect and burial their body deserved. Its also something deeper as in he wants peace and when he looks around death is actually the most peaceful option around. He again restates this fact in "Repartition Day", which takes place passing through the bodies of soldiers  at a Red Cross. Turner writes " I want to lie down among them to be wrapped in sheets like flags of nations". He wants not only the peace that comes with death, but the overall honor of a solider who died. Death he suggests is never the end, but that the respect in ones own country will never be forgotten once your name is written down. and once that name is written he can have peace.