Reflections after a “War Forum” in Rock Tavern, NY
Words drop from our lips like honey
Sweet coating with abstractions
The cruel realities that veterans
Face as daylight nightmares
Flashbacks on bloody broken bodies
Twists and turns of suspicions
Lost as they are mustered out
Into a world that never asked them
To go fight in those foolish wars, a world
That resents the costs that still weigh
And will for decades to come on what
Is now impossible, Achilles redux,
Forgiven to be forgotten, not honored.
While at home the waters never did
Roll down like justice, they dried up
And the parched throats cannot swallow
The euphemisms for waste wrapped
In false promises and forked paths of politics.
By Mark C. Johnson