POEM - Television Always Adds Ten Pounds (or Things Are Never What They Appear To Be)

In war the bullets don’t really riddle
The flesh with small holes the way we are led
To believe by TV and the movies.
Rather, they detonate like summer fruit
By fusillades of searing ordinance.

This is not the war we played when we were
Little boys turning felled branches into
Ersatz guns:
Whole limbs were never sheared off,
Whole organs never removed or displaced.

This is not the war we are promised that
Will turn us into an Army of One;
Will help us to be all that we can be;
Will transform us into the few, the proud.

The fog of war makes for a great romance.

What war does to us must be shared through the
Eyes of every victim but no one is
Spared: not the ones who return lame or blind;
Not the ones unscathed, who seem so complete;
Not taxpayers, cultured in ignorance;
Not the Republicans or Democrats;
Not Islam’s passion or staid Christian soul;
Not my innocent grandchild, yet unknown
To this world, and not your grandchild either.


M C Biegner
2/18/2006