Crosses stand in
tidy formations
perfectly spaced
they line the hills
like a quilt
drenched in tears
with a pattern
of endless sorrow
white on green
many thousands of squares
times the sons of America
stitched in bullets and shrapnel
poison and gas
sewed up with soft down
sealed between layers
of home and bone
It is a quiet place
between twenty-one
gun tributes....
Blackjack's final hands
playued out as the
buglers inspired sad
wail of Taps
fades away........
I walk obliquely
without stepping on
the sacred mounds
raised like salutes
by mother Earth
but the names
scream at me....
"WHY??" "WHY??"
21...18...19...32 years
rotted flesh
folded flags.
there was a cross
for me here
and six feet of space
reserved for me
by the government but
I let them down
Instead of them
letting me down'
into another hole.
I beat the odds
the Delta Death dealers
never slapped down
that last car.
Oh, I'll still get
my blackjack salute
but much later then
Mike...William...dale
Phi;l...Gerald....or Dave
they are stuck]
in foxholes
where the enemy has
them pinned down forever.
Still if a grenade
were to fly into
the midst of a
crowd at an airport
by a terrorost enraged
Quite intstinctively
i would fling my body
horizontally over it
smothering it
with my chest
and absorbing the blast
thereby saving
those around me
and joining comrades
long since gone on.
We practiced this
over and over again
in Boot camp
for it is better
to lose one
than a whole
squad of men.
White crosses
lined up in
tidy formations
and i still want to scream
"F A L L O U T ! ! "
and watch them
all rise from the dust
brush themselves off
and reassemble as
flesh and bone units
till "At Ease" they all
troop of with me
to have a beer or two.
So I whisper "Senper Fi"
as I leave those
hallowed grounds
but a part of me
remains with those remains
that mean so much to me.
"Semper Fi"
"Do or Die"
Stellar Music was Composed &
Playeed by Chris Bright--©-2023
Lyrics & Vocals Written & Sung by
Matthew F. Blowers III -©-2023 at;
Art~Whimsically Yours Studio
Photo credit to: unsplash.com
