Those
spotty boys in army
uniforms
who built character
and self-discipline and
leadership
by taking their
rifles on the school bus
after a good shoot
with the L.M.G.
on the Bren range
(it being axiomatic
that one cannot give
orders
unless one can take
them),
I saw less and less
of
as the shadow
seemed to change
on the sundial of
the century,
war made obsolete
by universal death,
and Vietnam,
and the middle-class abundance
of the tail-end of
the
boom triggered by the Marshall Plan.
Today
we sit comfortably aboard a bullet train,
obsessed with
cutting out every
brown spot from our
shrinking
avocado,
not rocking but
rocketing
(unarmed and
unknowing)
smug at our progress
towards the purest democracy.
oh yes!
ReplyDeleteyes, I remember that
ReplyDelete