Imported Poems

It’s hot as hell, but hotter still
the fiery sun and scorching sand
that beat and blaze above and below
to burn the backs of better men,
of men laid low in steely Iraq
or unsung heroes West of Tehran.

The bursting flames of combative battlefields
make cowards brave and gods of men,
and fleeting bullets through blood-sullied hills
sing of nations saved or ideas defended
through graveyards paved with epithets
of patriotic lives that have ended.

Yet there is greatness even where loss is great,
When sacrifice serves to preserve the soul,
and men soar highest in a martyred state
and plummet down low with a selfish goal,
but what attends a youth whose fate
lies in self-imposed wounds
or by mistake is stole?

Tis hardest then, I think,
to answer for accident’s employ
when the fleeting bullet mutilates
or frothy sea claims
the life of just an adolescent boy.