Robert Olen Butler Wants Nachos

by Randy Brown

Author of 18 books
Pulitzer Prize-winner
Guggenheim fellow
Vietnam War veteran

tells the Air Force cadets
that Buddhists have it figured out:
We are all creatures of desire.

Last night at this time
I stood next to him in line at Hap’s Lounge,
so I feel qualified to say at least this much:

At one point in his life
all Robert Olen Butler wanted
was some unbroken, circular tortilla chips.

 ****

Randy Brown embedded with his former Iowa Army National Guard unit as a civilian journalist in Afghanistan, May-June 2011. A 20-year veteran with a previous overseas deployment, he subsequently authored the poetry collection Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire (Middle West Press, 2015). His poetry and non-fiction have appeared widely in literary print and on-line publications, including Stone Canoe, Drunken Boat, F(r)iction, and So It Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library. As “Charlie Sherpa,” he blogs about citizen-soldier culture at www.redbullrising.com, and about military-themed writing at www.aimingcircle.com.