Tuesday 5 August 2014

WAR AND MUD




what do i know of war ?

ive read Dispatches 
and the controlled crashing of 'nam pilots 
and Martha Gelhorne 
who couldnt find any nazis in Germany 1946
and Anthony Loyd
a war too far in paranoid black Chechen rubble
and
ive 
seen
the
awful transformation of a child 
in
the
Ukraine in Come And See

ive seen the photographs of Errol Flynn Jr
disappeared 
on 

motorbike 
over the Laos border 
ive read Cats Cradle
and the solution to wars worse obstruction - mud
mud
mud
mud
wading thru mud with a canteen of gin
in the South Pacific's estranged islands


know 
about 
Kovacs
and
Macnamara's Plan B

know 
about 
the 
elephants declared enemy combatants
and
the
pilots who never talk about it ever - never ever ever
and 
all
the 
irish 
nurses
say 
LET MEN HAVE THEIR WARS 
BUT 
CANT THEY LEAVE THE CHILDREN OUT OF IT ?

i know some never get over the dark
and 
some 
never 
eat 
pork
again
the pigs you see - the pigs left behind
by
running 
farmers
well the pigs - they cleared up
the
battle 
fields
with
awful hungry blameless snouts . . .



ive read the trench poetry
mud
again
always mud
deepened by tears
and
i
been in memorial museums packed with shoes
and
tiny
torn
purses
and i read the lists of names in stone
wondering who died sleeping under a tank
that 
sank 
slowly 
in 
the 
mud
just to get a night out of the rain

its
all 
LEST WE FORGET - like we could !
with
Hitler 24-7 on freeview channels

and
Kissinger still alive 
and
working

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