In these faded photographs you see
heroes and I see superimposed on them the
poster children of immature martyrdom
thrown from the city streets or homes or schools into
fields of dreams- or actually
nightmares- where blood runs like water (or rust) and
blessed silence speaks like
Charlie Chaplin on the radio but still
tinged with sadism like static
because the soundtrack of their lives
recorded would be gunfire and the screams
of their dying brothers and you tell me
who wouldn't be afraid?
I know I would
I share their most fervent hope of
having someone's arms around me as I die
because who wants to die alone? in
the midst of such squalor and suffering
that humans are not humans and man is dog
and it becomes monotone and static for
the ones left behind who live in fear just like
they live in fear and just like
they are stripped of humanity and just like
their sustenance is a faceless printed cause and just like
it is dangerous to consider
and they slowly become things hated and loved for the things they do to fellow man
and the things they do for their country and
safe from the slaughter
pristine
we contemplate
how far is too far and what is justice? do they
live justice in this field of mud and dying men
or are we all damned to Hell for our failures to
expel such dirty retribution from our lives and
some of us, we cry at night because what
is one against centuries? but more of us
don't cry at all and which is worse-
to suffer needlessly because man suffers needlessly
or to live a lie?
And while we cry, or don't cry, or should cry because
the dead cannot for themselves and pity, or don't
pity, but worship, or honor, or pay some sort of meaningless
homage to fill a cost in which homage is but a drop in the
ocean, an ocean of memories of blood and sweat and
tears and haunted men- the men are cut down and the killer
never knows the name of the victim because life is kill or be killed and
die alone and afraid but not quite as a dog dies
Not under the white cross and the purple heart and
the American flag which by God must smell like blood and
ashes and all the things never lived and which may be a
consolation but would not be for me if I lost my husband to
a monster such as that one and I wonder if
every night they lie awake wondering if he
died alone and afraid or
in self castigation for being so selfish as to
want someone by his side as he died

07/06/2006

Author's Note: Inspired by Mr. Daniel Byrd's class on Social Injustice and Just War Theory.

Posted on 07/06/2006
Copyright © 2024 Cassandra Leigh