Apologize Mr. President Poem by Duane Robert Pierson

You should apologize.
Get down on your knees and plead,
but your apology will be worthless,
like expectorant into a sewer.
yet do it, do it, do it
though it has less value
than a mass murderer’s
plea for forgiveness.
It must be done
as an acknowledgement
to crass arrogant greed,
to frat boy stupidity.

We have seen this deed before
at Cold Harbor,
at Gettysburg,
at Fredericksburg,
on the Somme,
on useless Pacific islands
and a thousand other travel folder
sites selected for war hell
where someone sent frightened brave men,
mother’s sons,
fathers of never born children
to useless horrible deaths
fulfilling a zealot’s goals.

But never has someone done it
while a nation plays,
as those back home
party, rock and dance,
while billionaires are created
and sales of luxury yachts
and private planes multiply,
while preachers preach righteous fury
against sins perceived in old men’s minds,
evils that cannot match yours.
Dead is dead is dead
blown to death in desert sand,
limbless in hidden wards
minds rewired by unfathomable horror,
all to further a lie
generated by old fools
chatting on country club bar stools.

Decorate a soldier’s skeleton
until it looks like a Christmas tree
with noble words you made hollow,
like freedom and democracy.
Tip your glasses
at your fancy balls
and raise another million
to be in position
to send America’s children
to die for an aristocracy
populated by draft dodging plutocrats.
Apologize please,
not for your being despicable,
but for converting virtue
into a marketing scheme
that yields death.