The tune my friend posted was "Broken Soldier". Immediately my memory bank kicked in and I was thinking of a friend I had met during my hard drug days in the early 1970s. His experience as a Vietnam vet I wrote about in a short composition in my blog back around ten years ago.
And since I have recently become smitten with poetry again and the possibility of creating some that was not terrible, I turned my short post into a short poem after I heard this tune.
It is so sad that fifty years later, we are still dealing with critically damaged souls after we sent them to wars that made on sense. Anyway, here are my thoughts after listening to Ferocious Dog's tune about the same problem.
"Conquering Hero"
His
eyes were full of the evil he had seen.
His
mouth, full of stories better passed over than passed down.
Memories
caught in his craw
Woke
him sweating cold in the dread of his nights
Leaving
him staring
Into
his darkness till Dawn’s early light
His
innocence pooled bloody on too many battle grounds.
Scarred
and broken he was sent back
To
a homeland that would never understand.
Well
meaning people wearing blue scrubs and white coats
Did
what they could.
As
it was with so many others,
It
did not work out.
Feeling
forgotten, discarded and alone with his demons,
He
sought solace in barbiturates, whiskey and gin.
Trying
to forget his role in the pre-meditated chaos
Of
Men killing Men in faraway lands.
One
day he gave up, double hit China White, laid down, and he died
Before
his curtain closed, with one final sigh,
Our
conquering hero had found his restful reprieve.
The
bleak stories and nightmares at last nodded goodbye.
2 comments:
I'm so out date when it comes to bands and such.
Coffee is on and stay safe
that made me weep
Post a Comment