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IT IS NOT ENOUGH

"I am a veteran of WW II, I served my country as well as my fellow Veterans. I, along with my wife, need our SS and Medicare to survive. Cutting the budget would put our lives into a great deal of hardship. We are senior aged. At Pearl Harbor I was ready and able to put my life on the line for my country. Sir, I don't believe this administration has the moral right to repay the seniors like myself with cutting our means of survival by cutting the budget."
—George, NC


It is not enough that you served with honor.
It is not enough that you died for the cause.
It is only enough that you are most willing
to die over and over until death has no loss
`til it finds passage through the vein of self
torturing you through its very pounding

How dreaded and parched is your termination?
How outrageous and bloodied damp are theirs?

How might we know the horror of your plight
without looking deeper than the beggar’s eyes,
without examining infinitely the empty corpse,
without narrowing our glance at rib and tongue?

It is not enough that we serve a mighty tower.
It is not enough that we die at its engulfing us.

How might we know when it has come `round;
come to collect our very bones for the sacrifice?
Will it place marks upon our shoulder, forehead?

It is not enough that you served with solid honor.
How might we know without ownership of you,
that you gave up everything of you to save her,
how might we know unable then to see the person?

It is not enough that you, sir, were willing to die.
It is not enough to lay claim to that and that alone.
It is only enough that you are one most willing,
death to repeat within you and you evaporate
to die again and again and again and...



Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman
VetsForPeace -- Iraq Insurgents
BBC Bush Denial of Civil War
VFP of Maine -- BBC Iraqi Prisonbreak
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Comments

  1. mirthMarch 21, 2006 at 3:07 PM

    Beautiful and provocative, as usual, as is the accompanying artwork. I'll need to read it many more times before I begin to understand its message, but that is my own shallow thinking. I would be happy to read its interpretation by others.

    ReplyDelete
  2. D-dayMarch 22, 2006 at 1:23 AM

    Politicians care not for the sacrifices of the past.
    They care not for the sacrifices of the present or future.
    They only care that someone is willing to sacrifice in their stead.
    Or for their cause.

    ReplyDelete
  3. thepoetrymanMarch 22, 2006 at 1:41 AM

    10-4! Good to see you, D!

    ReplyDelete

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