soliders & sailors
I.
As propaganda not less useful for
Arriving straight from central casting more
Than fifteen reconciled years too late
As for its placement one block south of “that’s
Too far to walk, let’s go and eat,” one passes
Solitary, numbed in winter, plain
Exhausted in the summer, by the tall
Senescent landlocked stone memorial
To Soliders and to Sailors of this State,
Which not quite meeting roughly drilled-out eye
To eye refuses confrontation, sighs,
And looks to urbanine sophisticates
To say, as any soldier ought to know,
You mustn’t hold your Love out like a Rose.
II.
Too like the sailor with his manly grip
Upon the rigging of an absent ship,
The overardent Lover risks his footing
And the self respect that comes of all
Promotions: might maintain his pride, stand tall,
But only in imagination looks
Himself to his superiors. Without
A cool detached reserve to hand to rouse
One’s interest, he plays it by the book
As long as he can stomach it. He makes
His hammock, lies in it, and then he begs
For recognition. He denies he took
For granted fashions were no more than clothes
And wore his tribulation like a Rose.
III.
But I was never asked to die for Love
Protests the cantering thick-bearded rough
Rider. You have my indignation — why
Should that be insufficient? It was more
Than surfeit to you in a time of war.
A gentleman when bested only finds
The patience to acknowledge it the once,
And then to rein in possible affronts
To come he buys a horse one hand higher
Than what he had before. I bought and burned
My sacrifice, gave you a chance to earn
Your Love and save it in the charge: a price
Too like the wild stallion I suppose,
Who cannot help but trample on a Rose.
IV
The lover carries like a cannon shot
Reverberating on the bluff, and hot
Upon the ears of bystanders appeals
To natural law for his excesses. War
Is not the province of the weak of course,
So he has never felt the touch of fear
Not ever been waylaid by patient doubt
Which lies beside the lesser-travelled routes,
No: not this far behind the line, concealed
From knowledge of the enemy or thoughts
Of anything beside his tent, his cot,
His mortar’s trigonometry revealed
In subtle arcs and sudden lights opposed;
A distant scent, a charred, a burning rose