The Discharge of the Home Guard

[gurdonark]

His company mobilized in quiet retreats,
the captains systematically discharging
battle-hardened soldiers, and sending them
home without arms or pension.

His cubicle proved to be one more picket,
Broken down in some rear guard action.
His co-workers were sorted into the dead,
the wounded, and those reduced in force.

Wars are lost; armies retreat--
but he had watched generals with golden epaulettes
looting the quartermaster, raiding the rations.
His appetite for combat is gone.

Comments

[amatrixangel.livejournal.com]

For some reason, this conjures up an image of the Civil War.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Yes. For some reason, my own mental thinking was a metaphor about all those pointless South American civil wars in the 19th and early 20th c