historyimages.blogspot By Jay Wenk
During a warm Spring day in
Czechoslovakia.
The Germans were done.
Safe now, birds returned,
trilling, fluttering around my head,
seeking sustenance for tomorrows.
I was homeward bound,
unaware that for my sake,
Eisenhower murdered Eddie Slovik,
unaware the French,
trying to regain a cushy colony,
were destroying a world,
unaware that Korean menus were being
printed by MacArthur and Co.,
unaware that my youthful interest in
Finland, Ethiopia, China and Spain
made them mine.
Unaware that Truman prepaid Vietnam
to the tune of 4 billion,
secret music the French would waltz with.
As an introduction to that dance,
lies were floated on the high seas.
Heroes trekked to Canada, while
Harry’s co-conspirators tangoed over the jungles.
Reverberations of their tunes left
common folks withering
with their trees and food and homes,
birds again taking wing to hidden places.
Today, these ancient danse macabres continue in
the Golden Triangle, where peace-proclaiming
leaders’ lies lubricate
the Birthplace of Civilization, compressing it with
greed into civilizations’ tomb.
Me, naïve, all those juddering decades ago.
My war never ended, never will.
During a warm Spring day in
Czechoslovakia.
The Germans were done.
Safe now, birds returned,
trilling, fluttering around my head,
seeking sustenance for tomorrows.
I was homeward bound,
unaware that for my sake,
Eisenhower murdered Eddie Slovik,
unaware the French,
trying to regain a cushy colony,
were destroying a world,
unaware that Korean menus were being
printed by MacArthur and Co.,
unaware that my youthful interest in
Finland, Ethiopia, China and Spain
made them mine.
Unaware that Truman prepaid Vietnam
to the tune of 4 billion,
secret music the French would waltz with.
As an introduction to that dance,
lies were floated on the high seas.
Heroes trekked to Canada, while
Harry’s co-conspirators tangoed over the jungles.
Reverberations of their tunes left
common folks withering
with their trees and food and homes,
birds again taking wing to hidden places.
Today, these ancient danse macabres continue in
the Golden Triangle, where peace-proclaiming
leaders’ lies lubricate
the Birthplace of Civilization, compressing it with
greed into civilizations’ tomb.
Me, naïve, all those juddering decades ago.
My war never ended, never will.