*****

Recorded Reading (2:22): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/pk12grgqa58cvbrj4u0ns/Home-From-the-Wars.mp3?rlkey=39tc9hmivl4pep24zz00dj6aw&dl=0

*****

Home From the Wars

Forever afterward he saw
Each familiar face
Twisted into rictuses
Of pain, shame and disgrace

As had those of the villagers
Whom he had liked before
That order to attack had
Sent him breaking down their door

Thin walls which seemed to others
To secure all held within —
He watched them as they crumbled
At an invader’s whim

These men — complacent, soft
And just a little overweight —
Would not know what to do
If enemies were at the gate

These women whom they treasure
Used as rags and thrown away
While they could nothing, nothing,
Not a thing about it say

Horrible scenes played for him
Each time an innocent child
Met his gaze, calm, unconcerned,
Or a passing schoolgirl smiled

For he had seen the children
In a far land, just like these
But so debased they would have done
Anything you might have pleased

For nothing in this world they count
As evil as return
To that from which for their escape
At any cost their young hearts burn

He knew the cringing hatred
Too tragic to tell
Reserved for those who help
Make others’ lives a living hell

He saw his driveway, smoothly paved,
Ripped up for barricade
He saw the wreck of all that he
Had struggled for, all he had made

Just like the fond possessions
He’d trampled underfoot,
By his commanding officer
Ordered to ‘use the boot’

Out front, the car in which
He might have with his family
Escaped to somewhere other
He saw burning brilliantly

And knew an endless hopelessness
Stripped of all disguise
Just as he’d watched it gaze at him
Through enemies’ defeated eyes

*****

This poet presently lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

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