An Ode to the fallen- "Hero"

Hero
For Matt and J. McNeil

“Your country needs you”
They left their families and lovers for this
They trained for this
They suffered for this
They died for this.

This band of brothers
Walk along the barren wasteland,
The earth’s pallid and arid flesh stretches interminably.
The sand vengefully whips at them again.
The crumbled carcasses of cars,
Punctuate the desert, cannibalized.
They burn and weep thick blankets of ebony
Suffocating the sky, and strangle the sun.

A spindly country boy,
walks among them.
He stops and wipes his narrow forehead,
With battered and cut arms that
once harvested and handled hay.
Cluttered brown fleece covers
His eyes, an ocean of soft baby blue
As they gaze upon the harsh wastelands.
He lugs a killing tool as thick as his legs,
Loaded with slugs the length of his fingers
And struggles with a back breaking pack
That dwarfs his figure.

The pleasure ran empty long ago.
Now the fear gripping ever so tightly.
Now he is running on bravado.

Behind them, some of the earth’s flesh jumps high into the sky,
An all too familiar ear splitting roar
A bicycle sized crater erupts and lying there is the country boy.
Legs but bloody stumps, arms but crimson confetti, torso but pulp.
He cries in helplessness, his comrades flock
In silence they meet his glassy stare and glare in morbid fascination
Those folk at home never mentioned the heat, the killing,the cruelty.


Heads dip In a silent salute.
Fires of raw emotion and compassion muted.
Crimson leaks from his wounds and coagulates in the dust.
Some cry, some shout in anguish, some pray, others simply walked away.


They do not eat or speak further that night.
What’s left of him is bagged, tagged, and sent home.


Back home.
Hundreds of lifeless words printed on paper, fed to the masses,
Translate the boy’s honorable death.
They sit in the middle, right next to the weather and oddspot, reading:
“Young hero cut down in the prime of his life by terrorists while defending country”
Eyes scan through the page long collection of Meaningless phrases:
“heroic death”, “national hero”, “national funeral”, “thousands attending”, “Awards given” “memorial built”.
Heads shake, tears well amiss the chatter and the coffee.

The hands tick on,
Slowly but surely.
Coldly, they continue and move on.

two crumpled figures.
A female rocks in the corner of a padded cell
Gently stroking a linting bear.
The male stares in stony stillness at the setting sun
Through an opaque slit in the wall.
A tear is bled and it rolls down his cheek.

Their heads are buzzing.

First born,
First gone
Soon forgotten.