Would smell as sweet

by T.P. Wilkinson / June 11th, 2017

A red dead rose,
What is in a name
MTV or Facebook fame
Imagine the aged
Warriors past
Tattooed breasts
And backsides fast
But forced to live
With all their ghosts
Gender transitioned
GPS-guided hosts
Who once so proudly
In uniform sang
All the worthless
They liberated
While church bells rang
And there
Where gods
in no churches dwell
With juvenile excitement
Paved roads to hell.
There were the tears
And the crocodiles
Play,
Where seldom a home
Escapes from a drone
And the poppies
In Westminster lay.

T.P. Wilkinson, Dr. rer. pol. writes, teaches History and English, directs theatre and coaches cricket between the cradles of Heine and Saramago. He is author of Unbecoming American: A War Memoir and also Church Clothes, Land, Mission and the End of Apartheid in South Africa. Read other articles by T.P..

This article was posted on Sunday, June 11th, 2017 at 8:03am and is filed under Poetry.