Memorial Days

[Eric Ashford]

The local girls are Asian, South Korean, Japanese,
Chinese, Vietnamese.
A few runaway Muslim chicks.
War is a man-shaped demon.

War is booze and guns, fistfights,
Humvees and frying, flying limbs.
What's a young man to do?
He does it, then lives to die later.

Madam Butterfly has a missile launcher.
Flower-drum songs and whistling bombs,
'agent orange' sing-alongs.
It’s all an edge of the grave rave.

Rosie the riveter has got herself a flamethrower.
Napalm blooms in the garden of sin.
What's a young man to do
to save you?

If he makes it, if he comes through,
treat him gently
while he holds his head and screams
or more likely, he goes quiet
way too quiet.
then he just might be the next explosion
in your new foxhole.

Local girls go and come home also,
she that stayed,
her long tour of duty has just begun.

[Colm Roe]

An engaging poem, Eric. You successfully examine the theme from many different perspectives, especially the women on both sides of the conflict.
I almost imagined you breaking out in song with the rhyme in S3 
Some nice wordage. Really liked War is a man-shaped demon.
The final S is subtle, restrained and fitting.
Nice read.

 

[indar]

Hi Eric,
This poem raises, once again (and again and again) the forever important issues in war. Stupid, seemingly inevitable war.

Most of the images and references in this write seem to be from WW2 and Viet Nam. From Viet Nam onward the causes of war have become less defined and more ridiculous. They also lack the symbols of foxholes, Rosie the Riveter and napalm and have become more remote somehow. Those who contribute to the war effort on the periphery are now becoming engaged in actual warfare.

They are somewhat less waged by men alone. Perhaps I'm reading this wrong:

Local girls go and come home also,
she that stayed,
her long tour of duty has just begun.


Not only women, but all those who stay at home will engage in a different kind of war wrought by the horrible trauma of warfare that might include men who must comfort a woman. 

[Colm Roe]

Linda, the impression I got from the last stanza was that they were 'working ladies', and if they stayed they'd never escape from brothel life 

[indar]

OMG--total shift in perspective! 

[Eric Ashford]

Thanks for this warm review Calm Rose,
it's a bit of a splurge, but I hope gets it point across.
Cheers.

[Eric Ashford]

Hi Indar glad this worked for you. Yes, the war references do seem to be past wars mainly.
Once I had established that Far East flavor. I kind of got stuck in the latter conflicts
though I hope it reflects wars in general. You are quite right of course, modern warfare
is a different kind of barbarity. However I can't help but feel that the Ukraine mess
and the Russian way of fighting harkens back to WW11 tactics also.

[Dave]

Part of any interest in recent wars - those post second world war - might be in how poor major armies that are in love with their own fire power seem to be. Russia in the Ukraine just seems to be another in a long line of conflicts whereby the great power may well prevail, though it is not a given, but purely because of that firepower rather than any great military skill. Part of the problem seems to be hubris, big and powerful and therefore destined to victory, another part seems to be the willingness of those with lesser firepower to suffer pain and death and finally the cultural ignorance of the major countries, evident in such conflicts as Vietnam or Iraq or Britain in Egypt and absolutely every attempt to take Afghanistan. We do young people a great disservice to send them to pointless suffering and the myth of war as a matter for men does not help.
The poem provides food for thought.
Dave