SOLDIERS DESPITE OURSELVES

Downstairs a trumpeter is playing

Gershwin badly but somehow

truer that way.

The squat

chimney of my pipe keeps offering

smoke signals to the moon.

The sea-waves glitter like a zillion

nickels…

Two wars ago

the battle of the Riviera happened

here.

Two wars ago

the author of The Little Prince

flew southward from this coast

and crashed at sea without a trace.

That’s how I tell the time

these days- by wars, the madness

of wars.

I think of Mussolini,

who believed each generation

needed war to purify its blood.

He leaned on history to show

that life’s unlivable except

through death.

I palm the ashes

from my pipe.

To hell

with Mussolini.

I’ll take

bad Gershwin to a bullet

any time.

To hell with history.

The moon’s manna on the sea

outshines the glory that was Greece.

To hell with those who say

the earth’s a battleground we’re doomed

to govern with a gun.

Because

of them we have to fight to live.

But win or lose, they’ve won

since fighting proves they’re right.

Why ask if they outnumber us

or not?

It takes just one.

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