I was dreaming of the war the other night; <br />I had returned with all of my weapons loaded <br />to the jungles of my misspent youth. <br />The helicopter size mosquitoes immediately <br />recognized my malaria as their ancestral strain. <br />The Hyenas that had once rightly laughed <br />at my naiveté as a boy; weren’t laughing, <br />as with forty years of experience tacked on… <br />to what had never really been a killer’s instinct <br />I was much more dangerous and less predictable. <br />There were still the usual tigers in fatigues <br />and the starving buzzards, circling above my head <br />having fed on the dried out marrow of my brothers bones <br />they were looking for a yet another firefight, but I <br />could not oblige them with a convenient kill. <br />I looked around for the familiar face of Death. <br />I sniffed the air and the putrid smell of war <br />had all but totally disappeared. <br />We who had come and conquered that jungle; <br />we who had departed as soulless victors over a defoliated land <br />only to be decorated with shame by the hisses and boos of public opinion, <br />could now be proud of our legacy….in spite of ourselves. <br />I was dreaming of the war the other night; it was to be <br />a peaceful reunion with a few of my dead friends…. <br /> <br />2008 © TS<br /><br />Ted Sheridan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/1968-overtures/
