-a cookout-

holiday.

people are stopping by.

casually dressed to blend.

it’s a backyard cookout.

the people are in mourning,

a proclamation for the fallen.
for the fallen.

for the dead in heavy fabric blue

and heavy fabric grey, posing for pictures,

yawning, bloated, ––  the hunkered

doughboys of the trenches. the whistle!

over the top, boys!
the crackle of terrible fire!

the doughboys hit, slide back down
along the walls of the trench

where mud is the resting-place to eternity.

(drier sand along the beachheads absorb more blood,

but the stains are washed with the tide.) 

the youngster's ask:
"hey, dad, what did you do in the war"?
they lift their shirts displaying scars long before
Lyndon showed us his.

(for purposes of clarification, Lyndon's scar
was the result of gallbladder surgery.)

"hey, hey, LBJ!
how many kids did you kill today?!"

"It's from a Nazi bayonet, my boy", the fathers say.

cookout !

disinfect those garden tomatoes

plucked from the path of the hungry hornworm!

there are heroes to honor.
damn the hornworms and pass the piccalilli !

("piccalilli" is chosen here because I need
a four syllable word with the accent on the third syllable
as in "ammunition.")

spread the word over there. over there !

("over there" is taken from the WW1 patriotic tune
to warn the German's that: "the Yanks are coming.")

spread the word over there there’s a cookout over here !

5/25/20