THANK YOU BUDDY

I knelt by the stone that marks where you are

Looked up at the wan light of night’s first star

I felt I truly needed to talk to you once more

To talk out some things like we had done before

I know you’re not there down six feet far below

Still there are questions whose answer I need know

They weigh on my mind and prickle my very soul

Won’t you try to answer me from your dirt hole?

I wasn’t a new guy, but I was nearly as damn dumb

On that trail because I was in a hurry to get me some

Endangering  the raw troops who needed to be trained

Not realizing they’d soon be attacked and blood stained

The first loud shot rang out and they all froze in place

The next was a hit that took off most of the man’s face

He flipped in the air, fell on his back his blood spouting

They all just stood there stunned despite all my shouting

I grabbed some men and you must’ve done the same

I called them stupid and dumb and every filthy name

I threw their little bodies in the bush off of the trail

I was wound so tight, but I was moving like a snail

I fired and fired my shotgun up high in the strange trees

I emptied it up there, but I did no more than rattle leaves

Just then a bullet kicked up a fountain of dirt at my feet

I knew the target was on me and I was buried in concrete.

I leaped off of that back water trail into a roadside ditch

The minute I did I knew I was one dumb son of a bitch

The Punji stick went through my boot and deep in my foot

That stabbing pain and what I saw told me I was kaput

A sharpened bamboo stick with a point so very sharp

The stains on it told me I’d soon be playing a gold harp

Then you showed up and pulled me under cover deep

I was reacting to that poison and wanted to go to sleep

I don’t remember how we got back to where I woke up

It was hazy and my leg was all swollen, I was a sick pup

You were days gone on another assignment no one knew

I just wanted to shake your hand and try to thank you.

They sent me back and I was out in just a month it seems

Back In the World, the land of all of our many dreams

I called your mom and she said you were coming home

And right here is where they’d put you so wouldn’t roam

It doesn’t matter to us that we had different colored skin

We were brothers in our hearts just as if we were close kin

I wanted to Thank You for giving me all of this good life

I have found a woman who loves me and now is my wife

And you are down there resting in that cold, cold ground

Quiet is the grave, but I hope you will hear this one sound

As I tell you I love you my brother for giving me this gift

And I’ll buy you a beer when I follow across the Great Rift.

© Spider ‘09

SPIDER

* Author * Artist * Teacher * Consultant *