Extras Blues Poem by Kevin Patrick

Drolly, I watched Commando, last night
And for fifteen minutes my brain was melted
Into the Spartan ethos of Paleolithic passivity
Watching Arnie run through South America
Dispatching the bad guys with machine guns
While saving the Day for the US of A
The Austrian Cowboy with Nazi Connections
Who dreamed of becoming Miss. Kennedy

Meanwhile there was a scene that held my attention
It was two men standing guard at a compound
Wearing camouflaged fatigues matching the trees
They held sub machine guns in threatening postures
Standing like gargoyles but dressed as GI Joes
Their faces were mountains of carved granite
And there bodies were boulders of merciless pressure
In other words they were bad guys good for the kill


And just before Arnie came to admit the Coup de grâce
Then it occurred to me, that these men were human beings
Human beings possessing dreams, and desires and beliefs
Not unlike the individuals relishing the watch of their demise
They had families and friends, and stories of life
Childhoods cleared into the drawers of adulthood
And now they were going to be punished for making a choice
That served the economical logistics of their dire situation


I watched these two men knowing that they were bad
Then I wondered what made me and Arnie so good
Perhaps they were rapists, murders and merciless cutthroats
That enjoyed torturing infants, and burning puppies
And for a moment my conscience felt expunged
With the passing of remorse as I waited for the kill
But then the nagging feeling of guilt came again
Because no matter how depraved these men were

They were still somebodies sons, and once someone’s love

It seemed unfair and cruel that the sum total of their lives
Consisted of standing guard as mindless canon folder
Simply existing within the story for general plot mechanics
As the hero’s obstacle to be eliminated for dramatic impact
I looked at the one on the right and thought that’s he’s a baker
Working for the cartels to one day start up his own catering
While the one on the left he looked like a family man
Employed as a thug to keep the paycheques coming through


There was something horrifically tragic about them
Standing unassumingly knowing their end was near
Two men of many dozens whose lives were insignificant
And who life had assigned them to be henchmen no 99
Then Tossed and forgetting when the hero makes his entrance
But what was worse than their deaths was the simple fact
That nobody had ever bothered to give them proper names
Then Arnie turned up and by that point it didn’t matter

They were dead bad guys with bullets in their heads
I cheered as the hero one again, and then I changed the channel