"My Very favorite Poem"
A Man, A Soldier
Take a man, make him a soldier.
Put his kind 12,000 miles from home.
Empty his heart of all but the blood,
Make him live in sweat and mud.
This is the life we soldiers must live,
And our souls to the devil we give.
And you peace boys back home don't care,
You don't know what it's like over here.
You have have a ball without really trying,
While over here men are dying.
You burn your draft cards and march at dawn,
You put your signs on the White House lawn.
You want to bann the deadly bomb,
You say there's no war in Vietnam.
Use your drugs and have your fun,
And refuse to lift a gun.
You say there's nothing in it for you,
Yet we're supposed to die for you.
I'll hate you til the day I die,
When I hear again my buddy's cry.
I see his arm a bloody shred,
I hear the medic say "This one's dead".
It's quite a price he had to pay,
Not to live another day.
He had the guts to fight and die,
He paid the price, but what'd he buy?
He bought your life by losing his,
But what do you care what a soldier gives?
This one comes
in a very close second place on my list of favorites.
"A SCANDAL AMONG THE FLOWERS"
A woodland Sprit of rakish
kind,
Suddenly made up his mind.
That he had been so good
through Lent,
He'd just start out on
pleasure bent.
He flittered around from
flower to flower,
And told them love tales
by the hour,
But the posies tired and
sought repose-
All but one little budded
rose.
And she poor silly little
dear,
Turned to the Sprit a willing
ear.
He kissed her velevt pin-white
lips,
And fingered her dress
with his finger tips.
He flatered her gown and
admired her taste,
From her moss-green cap
to her sylph like waist.
He told of a duel he had
fought,
With a bandit bee he had
caught.
While robbing a rose of
it's honeydew,
And with his sword he ran
it through.
Then what did the little
rose bud do,
Why, she laid her head
on the Sprites broad breast.
And then, oh well, you
know the rest;
It was the same old story
in a different light,
For the bud gave birth
to the rose that night.
Now you'll all condem this
naughty elf,
Who thought so much of
his selfish self.
But he did the manly Spritely
thing,
And presented the bud with
a wedding ring.
And now instead of one,
they say,
The little bud is a whole
bouquet.
-Charles S. Taylor
