Day of the Pariah

DAY OF THE PARIAH

Bogie and the Duke
never made a war movie together,
and that's a damned shame;
it would have been
a proper piece of propaganda.

War
is always so clean
on the silver screen.
Explosions are intense rainbows,
tramping troops start toes tapping.
Great machines of war on wheels
and tracks of steel,
groan and roll,
clang and bang,
crushing foreign soil
and foreign devils beneath them.

Actors in pancake make-up,
carrying toy guns,
recite bellicose bullshit,
wearing the masks of heroes,
and the blood
on their hands and faces
is merely strawberry jam.

But the problem is,
in those darkened theatres
battalions of boys believed
in the ersatz brutality,
and found themselves
in Viet Nam.

The Freedom Birds,
screaming jet liners,
took them there,
and for those who survived
Tour 365,
and remained somewhat
alive,
brought them home again,
with the steaming blood
of the Orient
still clinging to their swollen lips.

Home,
to work in their Dad's
hardware store, lumber yard or machine shop,
with the stench of the 'Nam
still strong in their nostrils.

They remembered
how proud their fathers had been
sending them off to war;
and how,
now,
their only embrace
was stone silence.

Warriors walking
the streets
of every city in America,
hundreds of thousands of them,
with their fists clenched
and their minds still scrambled
from that Soc Trang overload.

Watching
and waiting,
year after year,
angry
clear into their bones,
with society's spittle
dripping
down the front of their dress uniforms.

There it is.

There were no parades,
no handshakes,
no welcome home dinners,
no easy bank loans,
no talk of valor.

The calloused fact is
pain can only be withheld
for so long.

War creates warriors,
and not all of them
are willing to lay down
their weapons.


Glenn Buttkus 1979