Memorials Are For Heroes

Just toss my ashes
in a common pit.
Those big ole monuments
don't seem to fit.

I won no war
that I was in.
One I was to start
just didn't quite begin.

No one killed
and no one died.
No gory remains
for a tomb to hide.

Remember me then
as useless crud.
Who exited the game
with no taste for blood.

Or forget me quickly
if you so please.
Long gone soon enough
like an evening breeze.

There is time still
to experience the treat,
of being shoot dead
in an American street.

Then toss my body
on a common pyre.
Seems many these days
willing to start that fire.

=====================================


Memorial Day is really about civil war. Not the kind where fighting is over there somewhere, with the bodies of honored dead shipped back home. No, it's fought in the fields and shops and streets of home, for your friends and family to try to avoid.

I was looking at Civil War Memorials and monuments. They all looked like victory to me. North and South, no real substantial differences. If everybody won, then there are no losers. The graves seem to say different.

I heard somehow that a lady was placing flowers on a grave while the fighting was still on. When asked if she knew the soldier in the unnamed grave, she replied, "I don't know where my son may lie, but this is where a mother's son is now." That's what Memorial Day comes down to.

And I saw this old cartoon. After studying each element and what they led to together I wrote this poem.


Caption: "You bet I'm goin' to be a soldier, too, like my Uncle David, when I grow up."
c. 1900 by John T. McCutcheon.

Well written:

Wars are so stupid but at times truly necessary. Unfortunately most are out of greed instead of actual necessity to defend ones country and people, IMO.

I occasionally think of those I knew who died of horrific deaths in lands far from their homes. None were cowards and were doing what they were trained to do. You have to wonder what they would have accomplished in a civilian life if they had not lost theirs in some conflict of governments called war.

I hate war and the death it brings but if I have to enter one I would suggest go in and decimate (or worse) the enemy and make anyone of their ilk think twice before beating the drums of war again.

a reply to: pthena

Loved it even before reading your description, and cartoon.

It seems to fit right-in with your posting style: so very genuine, and non-pretentious.

There is a lot of different concepts in there, not the least of which is the consideration of our own mortality.

Just dropping in to say nice read! Cheers!
And happy memorial day!

Make love.
Not war.
Where are we defending, now?

a reply to: 727Sky

a reply to: Nothin

a reply to: Trucker1

a reply to: letni

Thank you all for your kind responses.

I should have thanked you all sooner, but I was in a moment of silence.
It became rather awkward when I realized that it was unannounced
and there was no specified duration and no timer set.

After 18 hours or so I was silently reading other threads
and thinking of replies and it didn't seem right to
respond without first breaking the silence.

After sleeping on the matter I remembered in movies
that sometimes people end these things by saying:

Thank you.

a reply to: pthena

My best ever replies, were silent ones in my head...

a reply to: Nothin

There's an old taunt that people use:
"You can't fight your way out of a wet paper bag."

Smart people just stay out of wet paper bags.
Sometimes I get into rhetorical paper bags then can't argue my way out.
That's embarrassing and leaves the other person claiming a great victory,
which is actually a form of confusion.
Then I'm sad in hindsight.

There is a lot of different concepts in there, not the least of which is the consideration of our own mortality.

One concept that I didn't think of until reading the poem over a few times:

I'm actually eligible, upon death of course, to be buried in a National Cemetery.

The prospect that I end up dying of complications from acid reflux, like inhaling stomach acid, kind of like choking on vomit, and then being interred in a National Cemetery kind of got me thinking.

Imagine my headstone as a prop, part of a backdrop for political speeches,
"And these brave patriots paid the ultimate price for their country. They sacrificed their lives so that … … … … and so that we may go forward to … … … … "

Then I throw up in my mouth a little bit. And that isn't good for my health.

NOTE: I left certain phrases blank because if I filled them in with what I'm thinking my nice poem might end up in the mud pit. But you can be sure that sometimes the blanks are filled different ways, sometimes the opposite of previous speeches

Wet paper bag indeed.