To War, From Youth - Gregory Richard Barden's Blog

* There will never - CAN never - be too many words written about the senselessness of war. *

                              ~

TO WAR, FROM YOUTH -

     oh youth in all its callow shades
               is from our hope, precisely made
                    yet giv'n to stain the bib of war
          a bleed each mother answers for.

the wheels turned ...
while the best of our heartland
those blessed progeny of our founding fathers
and the wise women that bore them to breath and coursing
bled for the careful contracts of rights, human
and their constitutional foundations
others sweated away their brows and bones
in preparation of the pine catafalques
that would bear those dear conscripts home in
valorous yet vain-and-vapid victory
the wheels turned, indeed
progress, capitalism and industrial might
gears enmeshed and spinning, true
greased by the sinews of our dearest treasures -
selfless young women and men
who felt it their duty to give limb and life
to those very ideals ...
and ideas ...

     oh youth conveyed to sterile soil
               the mute impasse for terror's toil
                    discarded 'midst that chaos' fold
          a winter's kiss, commended cold.

word wielders ...
'sentence-smiths' in varied masks
pressed quill to paper with their barest cunning and acuity
painting the horror ...
pictures of phrase to capture the ruin
ravages, barren and bleak
strife and stares and stabs and stench, raw
meant to send home that terrible truth
their best efforts to plead for our best boys
to keep the bond presses chugging
rhythmic mimeographs in endless streams
devil's pay for a collective guilt
mortar for mangled limbs and lives -
weep lost to rain ...
crosses blooming like May meadows
their roots swollen, sucking the blood-soaked sod
water, far too precious ...
but the letting of young veins, in constant supply ...

     oh youth once gone to blithe pursuits
               now tasked to graves in bloody boots
                    what rights, this war, to waste a love
          sent damned from hell, to God above?

home furnaces burned ...
the aching loins of the countless
left to cold sheets and pillows unrumpled
empty-bed mornings and silent alarms
trembling nights, the nightgowns and nightingales
painted in moonlight, blue
that drowned those hearts in loneliness
and chased the virgin vows into warm-and-waiting arms
ne'er to be blamed or second-guessed
wars drag on ...
buoyed by the graft of powers, high
but fleshly needs beguile the most faithful of promises
spangled ears yearn for the lilt of conversation
diamond fingers want for a grasp
lips purse for the moistened press of another's
and the shadows of war's neglect
hide the sins, sensual ... searing
and the passions too long unattended ...

     oh youth is hearkened in the dark
               regressed for one unfaithful spark
                    how can it harm the lovers, gone
          as empty eyes convey the dawn?

what was ... what IS, your purpose?!?
to claim a parcel of dirt or stretch of water
that you will just abuse and pollute?
to kiss your bloated ego with a mouth of pristine claim?
to dig a horrid trench of misery wide enough
and deep enough to hold the tears
you have wrought in vain?
to poison the air with screams, unholy -
music of madness, thus strangled
from the throats of our precious children?
to possess a hill or rill or valley or vineyard or passage
that you will neglect and rape in greed?
pray, tell me ...
I beg, convince me of a lie ...
let me believe there is some divine absolution
in your god-forsaken actuality ...
for it is the best of humanity's minds and motions
that have perpetuated your horrors ...

     oh youth absolved thru grander folly
               cold and dead, their wreaths of holly
                    sent to graves with careless greed
          tombstone blossoms, gone to seed.

the very best of
our acumen and insight and innovation
and investment and fruition ...
given - freely
for the very WORST
of our acts -
a senseless debt that shames us ALL ...
oh, pray ...
in the name of all that's precious and holy ...
all that we shine and hope and dream and believe in ...
in the blessed name of
all that we hold most dear ...
WHY?!?