Another Troubled Man

He said he was from Colorado, then from Texas

I'm still uncertain from where but somewhere out there

Where the dust clowds blow in the summer air

Many small towns are out there, where America despairs.

Consuming his drink he called himself the son of w******s

No shame in that I said, were all w******s in a round about way

Buying another round we settled into the final hour of the day

Sitting there in noisy silence, he recalled the attack.

His company lurched forward, then stopped, then forward again

A loud bang, then nothing, then screaming, then pain

Nothing unusual about the story, such is war, which is wild

My mind kept repeating, only a few years ago this man was a child.

I suspected this child was cut loose far before his service

Tenderness at a tender age is a luxury, a purple heart a tradgedy

War should only be witnessed by the jaded, by the sadducees

But the jaded do not fight, repercussions make them nervous.

He slipped down another pain killer with his beer

The pain he was feeling was in between his ears

With the first he complained about his back

But his mind still raw, was still in Iraq.

Closing time the bartender said, as the night faded into mourning

Our beers since finished, sat as fallen soldiers, a memory of time

The last witnesses to a battle in a troubled man's fallen mind

Parting ways, I could only feel sadness, and a sense of forlorning.