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Patriotic Poems
War and Tragedy

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Contributor: Gary Jacobson || Poem Categories

Death Is Not a Pretty Thing country as flag
Death is not a pretty thing
Lying grotesque in battle's field
Horrid mouth agape with hollow ring
Stiffened by dirt with blood congealed
Terror-stricken mouth locked open to sing
Primal screams voiced to past and future sealed
His vacant soul to the river Styx carried
Across which souls of the dead are ferried.

All life now suddenly petrified burlesque
Sightless eyes watching over rice paddy banks muddy
Picturesque horrors frozen in pursuits barbarous
His staring eyes abandoned in ruddy war cruddy
Posed like a fallen statue grotesque
Lies my forever bosom buddy
Gone to the hall where Odin will receive his soul slain
In Valhalla forevermore to remain.

His fragile Youth lies forever stilled
Forever lost to this �to be, or not to be' war
Lost to Eos, goddess of the dawn bedeviled
Committed to serial war decreed eons before
Fervid heat boiling within him chilled
Impassioned testament to devil war
Just so much rust-stained dirty laundry jeers
His primordial dust will lay undisturbed for years.
By Gary Jacobson
Copyright 2009
Listed December 28, 2010

About Author... In 1966-67, Gary Jacobson served with B Co 2nd/7th 1st Air Cavalry in Vietnam as a combat infantryman and is the recipient of the Purple Heart.

Gary, who resides in Idaho writes stories he hopes are never forgotten, perhaps compelled by a Vietnamese legend that says, "All poets are full of silver threads that rise inside them as the moon grows large." So Gary says he writes because "It is that these silver threads are words poking at me � I must let them out. I must! I write for my brothers who cannot bear to talk of what they've seen and to educate those who haven't the foggiest idea about the effect that the horrors of war have on boys-next-door."

Visit Gary Jacobson's site for more information

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War and Tragedy Poems | Poem Categories