Classic Poem

The church mice had been bombed out of Albert
The corporal under the gas ring
Said he would get out for good this time
If the roquefort didn't sit still on the plate
Instead of bruising its bottom green on the table.
For the French it was the way it ought to be
The roquefort but the corporal had a sore throat
And it had been raining all day

They have planted a flower
Under the rose trees at Albert
Pneumonia cool as edelweiss
Was the last thing blooming into a song for him
Singing to him like a mama
This century the war that came whistling
The only bird that sang

After forty-eight hours of marriage with the elements
The corporal took out the roquefort
He had brought with him for company
It was winging in his pocket like a hummingbird
In Amiens he felt it out saying soit sage to it
In Albert he saw the gangrene on it was eating closer
And closer to the bone

Spring came
Without pulpit flowers
Or boiling tubs of sassafras
A long time
Since spring had come in a new way
The cannons bucked like goats
Along the edge of it
The veins broke wide and flowered
The corporal at Albert
Fell into decay

In response to the bird's clarion
There came the highest qualities of gentlemen
The girls (all ladies) nursing their way through it
The towns were proud the trains the sky the liners
Staterooms wharves the skyline proud
The army proud to wear them strong as hyacinths
The surgeons were happy and proud
The wings of airplanes and proud the sheets
The pillows bedpans congressmen the subways proud
The president the frigidaire turned proud
We are proud of our girls who are over there.

Oh, Leda, how did the swan fly in hospitals
How from the rushes did its wings lift
The iron mirror of the lake
Churned to a wheel from indolence to anger
The small black budding spring
Pressed close between the breasts

The corporal died happy to have had
A flower nourished by his nine red yards
Of clogged intestines planted where he fell
Others were put seven hundred at a time
Under a truckload of small rock and gravel
In the way that any group
Could be disposed of without a loss to history
Beyond beauty of line squandered and wiped out
Tied still beneath gray wire wreaths with
Petits anges au ciel volez volez pour nous
Written in celluloid

I remember them
With Christmas trees
With lollypops
Eating their soup quietly
Out of the sides of their spoons
They made life a meal of
Young chop suey fresh roots and tendrils
Of peaches burning
And of lemon ice

The corporal died knowing that if Debs
Had been president there'd be a German general
In every maiden lady's bed
Contented to masturbate the lady mules
In spare time
Talking of war not as it was to him
A burden which in honor he could not put down

There will be more sons
More husbands fathers
To breed for another springtime
To stamp for another season for hallelujah
(Not the pruning and the sobbing of ringdoves
In the willows soft with repining)
Now we are stricken with peace
We are stricken with peace
We are stricken