The Terrible Cost
Into a place inside the mind
Rivers flowing cascades of time
Violent winds
Melting rhymes
See a colour before my eyes
A song playing softly
The multitudes cried
As a baby was born
My friend died
Because of Viet Nam
People cried
But nobody heard
We saw it creeping
Knowing in time
Death always wins out
Now it’s been decades Bobby’s been sleeping
Time takes the child
Raises him up
Army takes the boy
Makes him a man
Sometimes the boy
Is not ready to be a man
But along comes war
And forces his hand
How many young men
Both living and dead
Living in peace time
Different thoughts in their heads
How many doctors
How many cops
How many teachers
How many mechanics
How many priests
How many artists
How many politicians
How many disc jockeys
How many weathermen
How many fathers
Sending their boys off to war
Knowing when they if they return
Will be their boys no more
Haunted eyed soldier
Stands at parade rest
The names of his buddies
Tattooed on his chest
Till home he arrives
No welcoming band
Just a needle and a bottle cap
And a stone with the rest
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