I once owned a uniform that shone in pride
The polished brass, creases and lines
An army of friends and civilian respect
I marched upon every street, placed every laureate
The glowing admiration, the tireless market
Of gazing faces that sung even to the heartless
Badgered by memories that I couldn’t forget
Now withered and worn the years of regret
My mental battle the suffering toll of silence
No English I could mouth about the raw entirety
Flashbacks of the wars supplying me
But I sit a cluster of before
My battlefield a daily occurrence of aimlessly wandering
In routine emergence, of seeking cigarette butts borrowing more time and beer
To drown out the battle none but mine could hear
I clamber from bush broken sunlight, coughing up
The empty sobriety of reality
Just a used device, a human resource
Hoodwinked and lead noosed in ignorant obligation
Never-ending instigation from mind emancipation
From this dumb-founded degree of humiliation
Drunken laughter upon this man once bold
Pissing on the soul
And soles of my ragged boots, I couldn’t maintain or even hold
Completely neglected by all I did serve
Now served by a starvational solitude
A face that none could remember, a shadow of my youth
Just aloof wandering every day until my feet give up from the holes in my boots
Until I drop dead like the rest of the ‘glorious dead’
Should have been left with a rifle on a battlefield proper
Something my mind could accept, something I would now offer.
Who would care and would begin to wonder
Who these men were and why in such slumber
After-all I am just a homeless soldier