I can never get them

to not go,
to not rise up out of the ditches that had been
gouged out of the chalky soil near that sluggish river,
muddy way stations that had been dug
with the swaggering confidence
that they would be temporary.
They never hear my warning
to stay down
because the ones over there aren't dead,
but very much alive and desperate
to dig themselves out of their involuntary graves,
having spent a week of riding out the
storm of metal and gas,
and ready to man their
fire positions in a frenzy of terror and release.
They don't know that the Newfoundlanders
are going to be slaughtered or mutilated to the last man,
or that the Merseyside Pals are about to cease to exist,
or that he's going to have his jaw shot away,
or that the man over there is going to make the nurses
almost faint when they see him,
or that the man next to him is headed
for the Moribund Tent and a shot of morphine
and a smiling nurse to hold his hand as he slips away.
They'll always be brave, they'll always do what Haig
told them, and they'll always be
annihilated for it.
And no matter how many times I hope it will be otherwise,
that 19 year old kid always gets his Victoria Cross
posthumously.

The cast of the play

I grew up with

keeps changing, their faces evaporating,

the memory of them turning into

file footage, and every year the members of

the dramatis personae become harder

to keep straight.

Sometimes they look like the old actors,

but you can't fool me--they keep reading the lines differently

and ad libbing relentlessly, devising scenes

that I don't recognize,

and taking the plot in directions that I can only look at

through my fingers.

I could swear they haven't read

the script at all, because some of them keep

crashing into the same scenery that everyone

always seems to.

I've been in the audience a while now,

and it seems that a lot of people go to

the concession stand

and never return.

And I can't help but notice

that the seat I used to have

near the middle of the theater

is getting closer to that glowing red sign

in the corner,

and fewer and fewer people seem to notice

if I applaud or not.

If you were really

what they say you are,
you would be responsible
for all of it, and either
you wouldn't,
or you couldn't,
or you had a deal with yourself
not to interfere,
no matter what.
I have to believe that you are still
becoming,
because if I thought that you were
already
both here
and beyond here,
then I could never
understand how that nine year old girl,
wandering in shock down the streets
of hellscaped Nanking
with blood running down her legs,
glorified you.
And I would hate you, in my
antlike ignorance, for that,
or else have to think that you really were
just a rumor, after all, because
I'd have too much respect for you
to believe in you.
So I have to believe that you couldn't,
but that someday you'll be able to,
and that you will make it up to her,
and to every other innocent in every other
universe,
and that everything will make sense
at the end of time,
because, that's the only way I can come in from
the desert,
and I'm
more tired than even you could know,
of wandering sightless
within its desolate expanses.

I was twelve

and still living in the world
of church youth groups
and Christmas caroling
at the nursing home and wanting to bring
syrupy joy to the shut-ins,
and he was lost in his ninety years,
sitting like a living cadaver,
his breadstick legs crossed as if they were locked,
waiting exhaustedly for the days to finally
end.
His skull-like head was propped in his decaying hand
and he stared, stripped of caring,
indifferent to our childish do-gooderism.
He seemed to have outlived life itself and
had ended up on old people's death row,
cursed by living beyond the desire
or the ability of anyone at home
to help him to the bathroom.
I didn't see any of
that then.
All I saw was a sad, defeated, skeleton
and I knew that I
was damned well never going to be
him.
A lot of my opinions have changed since that night.
But not that one.

"We must always come

first," he shouted
in the lashing voice of command.
"Every action in defense of the ancient
and venerable tribe-mind of our people
is bloodworthy,
unspeakably just,
and beyond the paltry glory of Olympus.
We are bound
by no simpering rule.
We are restrained by no female weakness.
Our survival and our prospering
must always be at the zenith of the sky.
In the name of what is right
(and what is right is us!) we
we must make the gut-slashing fury of our
noble hatred
more horrible
than any soul has ever borne witness to,
because the Tribe must live so that it might keep
its place in the beautiful celebration
of merciless,
face-burning,
jaw-smashing,
rib-crushing,
spine-cracking
life!"
And with that he turned the rack
tighter.
And we cheered.

There is at least one echo left

of that Edenic majesty of our
sepia-tinted mythology.
It sings a jumbled chorus of
mating calls and lets an impish breeze
swirl through it insouciantly.
It bathes in star radiance and calls forth
from the ruddy, burgeoning earth
its dizzying array of children.
It revels in its ignorance
of soul destroying dawns
and cradles those
privileged to exult in it
like a mother who never grew old
and who will in fact
hold us gently in the hour of our
fortunate death.

Let's build a roaring fire

and bellow out mindless songs in unison.

Let's flex our chests and feel the testosterone

coursing through us in animal rivers.

Let's laugh until we

double up at jokes about Doing It and

Getting Some. Let's talk

defensive secondaries and offensive lines and

pound the beers

until everyone is our friend. Let's

arm wrestle and talk trash and yell "bullshit!" until we're

hoarse.

And then let's go home

and once more take off our furs and bearskins and horned helmets

and remember to use the right fork at dinner and to raise our little

fingers when we drink tea and wait until

the next time we get together

and become happy barbarians again.