THE "RETURNED"
Back in the world and alive to tell!
Yet scorn awaits us... the heart must quell
Coming back thinking, not as heroes
neither realizing we're viewed as zeros
Sores still upon the flesh... infected
our spirits pierced, our minds dissected
Our insides shaken as sheaves of wheat
compassion toward humanity near in defeat
Our country had sent us on this particular quest-
to have our hearts ripped from our chest
To return to our people is what we all prayed!
Then, accused and condemned for mess well made
Blood, still in our minds eye... from foe and fallen friend
won't you allow us America... to now rest and mend?
We fought to survive just the pain and the fears!
Unable to surrender to the shedding of tears
The days of hate, the color red... and the stench
from enemy night... cries of pain, the screams, from the trench
I have to laugh that... that we must be weak!
What is it that we will always seek?
One question I know... that is, I think
why after so many years do we smell the stink?
Not in the nose but locked in the mind, you see
it's there for good and there's nowhere to flee
Or the images that appear... as they've often done
whenever they feel like it - you've never won!
Flashes of people, dead, dying or alive
why is it that we were chosen to survive?
Scenes of the jungle in all its glory
beautiful and alive... tells quite a story
It has laughed and hidden many an atrocity
of man against man at the height of voracity
And of people - needlessly giving up their souls
you know... the ones riddled with all the holes!
Of course some lost arms or legs, or only a foot
and some were reduced to blackened soot
Some got out, not a decent wound to find
yet, ours was that... of a fragmented mind!
To be haunted, confused, and wondering why
that we have to be drunk to be able to cry
I know them all... they're all the same...
it's only ourselves we insist is to blame!
Just about everything - reminds us of "then".
There we go again... remembering "when"!
Going through life, minds secretly in the past
unknowingly encouraging the nightmare to last!