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Red Badge

(Battleground, 1949)

Watching a war movie

One of the better in

The genre

Everyone is frightened

Winter doesn’t help

Low clouds by day, and

There’s confusion

Even though

There’s order, too

How could I survive?

With my heart, I couldn’t

If it is congenital

(which is the current

guess), I guess I never

Could

Have gone

I’d miss the songs

The whistling in the dark

The weather that

Never seems to serve

Privation be it food

Or something potable

(who doesn’t need

a drink when drafted

at eighteen?),

Ammunition or the distance

That a letter brings,

A photograph

I’m speaking of the past

(the movie’s reach)

Now there are screens

And firm tries at

Armor, stronger missiles

That can guide

Themselves, it seems

Still, it’s a hellish business

No one should make

Money from it, then

Or now—It should be

A charity, the kind

That Lincoln said

We should have toward

All, funded through our

Tax dollars, as they

Say, at work this time

As a 501c3

Bring everyone back

In that fine order,

When it’s done. so

We all might start

Over, over here

It’s Sunday, and

I’m thinking about bullets

The kind that tear

Into flesh and

Malice in randomness

Through windows,

Let alone the shells,

As has been shown

While what

Is heard

Is a civilian scream

From the dark

Inside

Outside the street

Is burning, around

The pyres a dog

Alone, dodging

War tears into streets

There will never

Be another neighborhood

For good

This was my Sunday

Morning, sorry

I was not in church

But here—there was

A church scene in the

Movie, a chaplain

With a foot-wrapped

Message (first message

that of having given

boots away to another

soldier in that charity,

remember?)

That the Nazis wanted

War (they did want,

as remnants today)

So we, everyone

Who could—Pole,

Italian, Asian, Irish,

Latin, Black, Harvard,

Brooklyn—had

Some saving to do

Pastors, always

Talking about saving

I wish I could feel

Better but don’t

I’m tired, and I should

Have been at church

I should be

A better neighbor,

Standing up for what

Is right more often

Not merely

Trust a system

Here there were

Ranks and also branches

Stuffed in foxholes

With soldiers sharing

Cigarettes and stories

Chewing on

K rations unthankfully

(and why?)

Wanting chocolate and

The Stars and Stripes

To tell them beyond

The shoulders of

The next one

That war was

Over, peace declared,

And all go home

Maybe to another

Generation lost

But home it is

C L Couch

Photo by Kony Xyzx on Unsplash