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• Classic-Fiction

it was bloody and wrong but it was Romantic,

those dirty Germans with babies stuck on the ends of their

bayonets, and so forth, and

there were lots of patriotic songs, and the women loved both the soldiers

and their money.

the Mexican war and those other wars hardly ever happened.

and the Civil War, that was just a movie.

the wars come too fast now

even the pro-war boys grow weary,

World War Two did them in,

and then Korea, that Korea,

that was dirty, nobody won

except the black marketeers,

and BAM!—then came Vietnam,

I suppose the historians will have a name and a meaning for it,

but the young wised up first

and now the old are getting wise,

almost everybody’s anti-war,

no use having a war you can’t win,

right or wrong.

hell, I remember when I was a kid it

was 10 or 15 years after World War One was over,

we built model planes of Spads and Fokkers,

we bought Flying Aces magazine at the newsstand

we knew about Baron Manfred von Richthofen

and Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker

and we fought in dream trenches with our dream rifles

and had dream

bayonet fights with the dirty

Hun…

and those movies, full of drama and excitement,

about good old World War One, where

we almost got the Kaiser, we almost kidnapped him

once,

and in the end

we finished off all those spike-helmeted bastards

forever.

the young kids now, they don’t build model warplanes

nor do they dream fight in dream rice paddies,

they know it’s all useless, ordinary,

just a job like

sweeping the streets or picking up the garbage,

they’d rather go watch a Western or hang out at the

mall or go to the zoo or a football game, they’re

already thinking of college and automobiles and wives

and homes and barbecues, they’re already trapped

in another kind of dream, another kind of war,

and I guess it won’t kill them as fast, at least not

physically.

it was wrong but World War One was fun for us

it gave us Jean Harlow and James Cagney

and “Mademoi selle from Armentières, Parley-Voo?”

it gave us

long afternoons and evenings of play

(we didn’t realize that many of us were soon to die in

another war)

yes, they fooled us nicely but we were young and loved it—

the lies of our elders—

and see how it has changed—

they can’t bullshit

even a kid anymore,

not about all that.

now

I had boils the size of tomatoes

all over me

they stuck a drill into me

down at the county hospital,

and

just as the sun went down

every day

there was a man in a nearby ward

he’d start hollering for his friend Joe.

JOE! he’d holler, OH JOE! JOE!…!

COME GET ME, JOE!

Joe never came by.

I’ve never heard such mournful

sounds.

Joe was probably working off a

piece of ass or

attempting to solve a crossword puzzle.

I’ve always said

if you want to find out who your friends are

go to a mad house or

jail.

and if you want to find out where love is not

be a perpetual

loser.

I was very lucky with my boils

being drilled and tortured

against the backdrop of the Sierra Madre mountains

while that sun went down;

when that sun went down I knew what I would do

when I finally got that drill in my hands

like I have it

now.

society should realize…

you consult psychiatrists and philosophers

when things aren’t going well

and whores when they are.

the whores are there for young boys and old

men; to the young boys they say,

“don’t be frightened, honey, here I’ll put it

in for you.”

and for the old guys

they put on an act

like you’re really hooking it home.

society should realize the value of the

whore—I mean, those girls who really enjoy their

work—those who make it almost an

art form.

I’m thinking of the time

in a Mexican whore house

this gal with her little bowl and her rag

washing my dick,

and it got hard and she laughed and I

laughed and she

kissed it, gently and slowly, then she walked over and

spread out

on the bed

and I got on and we worked easily, no effort, no

tension, and some guy beat on the door and

yelled,

“Hey! what