Just Listening And Crying
When an Empire falls
Before things are fettled
Old debts are repaid
And old scores settled.
They called it ethnic cleansing
A mealy mouthed term
For acts of violence and horror
To make anybody squirm.
There to keep the peace,
Just observers they said,
No mention of the fact of
Disposing of the dead.
Crude crucifixion he called it
To describe what they found
Bodies nailed to wooden walls
Feet just off the ground.
Done before or after death
I don't think he really knew
Had just closed his mind to
Get on with what he had to do.
It's all flashing back now
After so many years
And as I sit and listen
Both of us are in tears.
For he is my brother
My comrade in arms
And sometimes a listening ear
Can help soothe and calm.
They send them off to war,
Violence wherever deployed
And give no thought or help to
Heal minds or bodies so destroyed.
Some times at night I wake
To scream in horror and despair
And I have only listened, not seen
Those acts perpetrated there.
Old scores settled
Uneasy peace come at last
For the present anyway
It's all consigned to the past.
I'll be back on Drop In duty when
Next my turn comes around
And I'll do my best to keep
Both feet on the ground.
For we Veterans Help each other
Or at the very least we try
For, but for the grace of any god,
That could have been you or I.
