Memorial Day (and Sergeant Murphy Monday)

It's Memorial Day and Sergeant Murphy Monday, and the Sarge says, "When in doubt, empty the magazine."

To mark Memorial Day itself, we have another poem:

ELEGY




Into the sunlight they marched,

into dog day, into no saints day,

and were cut down.

They marched without knowing

how the air would be sucked from their lungs,

how their lungs would collapse,

how the world would twist itself, would

bend into cruel angles.



Into the black understanding they marched

until the angels came

calling their names,

until they rose, one by one from the blood.

The light blasted down on them.

The bullets sliced through the razor grass

so there was not even time to speak.

The words would not let themselves be spoken.

Some of them died.

Some of them were not allowed to.



Bruce Weigl

(From Songs of Napalm, Poems by Bruce Weigl, © 1988)