#13: Close One, & Cigars
To the accords of The Book of Life ... cheers,
loose ends of the created stoic string
crisscross a heedless sea of empty tears.
In the facade of guilt, all seems trifling.
Metallica Horizons all are round,
languages changing from their Mother Tongues,
World Clock, reassemble to Zero down.
New tastes, new sounds ... The Song of Flower Drums
from Southerners, not quite, the cowboy type.
Bowls bleed of beets, ... have fun chow from Macao.
Americans, ... where? ... flagless world, all hype ...
Russians, Chinese, there ... steak, Mindanao.
Ex-lives work as one, building their Starships,
human chain meant Starman ... breathing room trips.
Like love ones come to view a parting ship
Before the anchor lifts
And its iron lips prow the salty waves
We journeyed from our busy day and penny pay
And the indifferent utterances to our cause
We came tattlering and joking and tired
Of the conditions simulating the bitter colonial
We wiped the bread crumbs from our mouth
Stood erect with eyes upon a pole
And watch the tricolored form slithered down
Head drooping in the gusty night
And all the while Dura drums rolling softly
Could not budge my steel convictions with fire
I felt alone in the long uproar of crowd
For I think I saw it winked an opulent eye
Before the pole flagless stood silent in naked night.
Written in 1981 after attending a Viet Nam veterans welcome home parade.
They march in step without a cadence call
and wear old uniforms, if they still fit,
recalling days when they were standing tall.
Five services, they represent them all;
a few in rolling chairs, required to sit.
They march in step without a cadence call.
On their parade a somber rain did fall,
but these were warriors not inclined to quit;
while some men heard the drummer not at all.
The flagless streets and silence they recall;
now greeted with a smile instead of spit.
They march in step without a cadence call.
On skeptic ears polite applause did fall,
for causes lost, but not their part in it;
while some men heard the drummer not at all.
The tears for those who died will ever fall
belatedly, a candle now was lit.
While some men hear the drummer not at all,
they march in step without a cadence call.