1. MORNING HAS BROKEN
The men, in lines, tramp two by two (forgetting all the women who,
Preparing for a night of tricks, were painted with their flaming sticks)
And think about the time ahead when they'll be gone, their bodies dead
(Some rotting slow, some mummified) though once they were their mummy's pride.
Attired bright in uniforms, they've strewn their bombs in desert storms -
Like melting sands, the sky deforms with darkness, d**h - and doomsday swarms
Through ravished lands where fires warm the corpses, cold and puriform.
Their eyes flash forward towards the backs of lucky ones who'll have the knack
Of never being in the way of bursts of bullets as they stray
(Effacing phantoms faraway) but live to die another day.
They're wishing for a foggy morn or best of all to be unborn,
And peering down to mark the sway of wings in webs while spiders prey,
They wonder when their time will come and they can stop their fleeing from
The sights they've seen, the deeds they've done, the life they've lost, the d**h they've won,
Then muse a while upon the child they k**ed one day when they went wild,
And when they're finally reconciled with broken bodies stacked and piled,
They ponder, did she have a kin to curse them for their burning sin?
And if she did, would god reply with tooth for tooth and eye for eye?
Or would her clan be mild and meek and simply turn the other cheek?
2. MIDDAY MUSINGS
They're counting steps to pa** the time and puzzle if they'll reach their prime
Or if instead they'll serve the worm their carnal flesh and aching s**m
When soon, perhaps, they sleep in berth provided by the chilling earth,
And fret about the fate they'll find below the stones that slowly grind.
And once or twice will come to mind a sultry smile they left behind
(The distant past - a tepid trace - another time, another place) ,
Reflected in a d**h grimace that paints a frightened withered face.
And on they trudge through guilt and gloom to track their own and other's doom
And soon they'll paint another pool with blood of other beings who'll
Inhale no more the evening airs, unlike the wily Functionaires
Who brutalize the fighting men and send them far away and then
(Relaxed, unwound, with victories made) confer with sword an accolade
On those who've lopped bowed heads, with blade, while someone bent must turn a spade
To hack a hole which then is filled with all the cloven bodies k**ed
And cloaked with clay or loamy dirt, as if to hide the pain and hurt.
3. TEATIME INTROSPECTION
Amongst the many are the few who maim and k** and think it's true
That purple war's a parlour game when really they are draped in shame
For crimes of which they are to blame and can't expunge with searing flame
While plodding through an endless time, or pealing bells with holy chime,
Or posing in a paradigm where paradox and riddle rhyme.
And when they die, as die they must, forevermore their putrid dust,
Still soaked with gore and carmine lust, will conjure thoughts of cold disgust,
And even though torrential rain (which tastes at times like cool champagne)
Can wash away the scarlet stain which mars the earth and its terrain,
It cannot ever cleanse the hands that work the guns and burning brands,
Or purge the throats that give commands to him who never understands,
Nor can the raging hurricane from blackened souls the white regain,
Rescind the sins or void the banes or shroud the night with golden chains.
4. EVENING REFLECTIONS
While through the night and day they pa**, their eyes avoid the looking gla**
Displaying dim a pale phantasm plunging deeper in a chasm,
Surging in a blood orgasm, smiling thin unveiled sarcasm
For the chances lost to taste the many fruits that went to waste
When each was still a joyous lad, who went to school and learned to add
And danced in rivers barefoot clad, and went to church with mom and dad
And heard about the good and bad, before he grew insanely mad
And took his brother by the throat and thrust him in a midnight moat
And watched the booted body float (quite like a broken battered boat)
And left the rag of bones to bloat in bullet-ridden overcoat,
And wondered if the goblins gloat or spot (behind his eyes, a mote) ,
And strode away without a thought that one more life had come to naught,
Sedated by a conscience brought to nothing more than dripping snot,
While Others sit upon a yacht and pluck the eyes of perch They've caught,
For fishes die and seem to see The Ones behind the tyranny
(With bellies round from gluttony) in future dangling from a tree
(With leaves as black as ebony) , for that's, They fear, Their destiny.
5. MIDNIGHT DREAMS
At night the soldiers sometimes dream of many things which make them scream,
Like
Upon their lips, which makes it seem as though their salt they can't redeem
When looking back in bold extreme at valiant warriors' victory scheme>,
Or ofter yet,
With gaping eyes and mouth replete with swollen tongue that cannot greet,
Or yell aloud or indiscreet', or talk about the grand deceit
Of Those Who live on Easy Street, Who plot, destroy and overeat,
While others wait beneath a sheet on bed of steely cold concrete,
With final gift a flag or wreath that soon will wither like their teeth
When once they've settled underneath (a mound of muck on vacant heath) >.
And ever more before they wake, appear the dreams not quite opaque,
Like
Who says "there must be some mistake, I only have a belly ache",
While high above's a flying Snake, she cries aloud "you are a fake,
You've eaten up my birthday cake"; and turquoise Turtles on the make
(They're changing gears to overtake, while slurping down a chocolate shake)
Arise to say "let us explain, we think you men are all insane,
You should be made of cellophane and ought to wear a window pane
To see more clearly those you've slain, enough to fill the whole domain
With blood and guts and tears and pain, Chimeras of a frenzied brain."
A worn and weary weather vane announces floods of claret rain
That forty days and nights sustain, submerging mountains, raising Cain,
And flushing mankind's acid reign down nature's evolution drain.
The Serpent hails a hydroplane "because", she hissed, "we can't remain;
Behind the hill, the atom's spark has wiped away the palace park,
And turned to dust the rainbow's arc and blotted out the Meadowlark".
And while the others hush and hark, a feline Toad begins to bark
"This plane is certainly Boa's Ark. Let's flee the Human hierarch,
Forsake all Men to sate the Shark that swim beneath the Waters Dark,
And purge the traces of the Mark in Eden when we disembark."
The beasts, in lines, by twos embark...>
The dreamers wake, they're staring, stark, behind their eyes a watermark...