A window breaks it is replaced,
A vase breaks, maybe glued and reused,
just turned the other way so mom won't
notice,
but
she does.

A record is broken that was thought to stand the
test of time,
every body cheers, knowing it maybe broken again.

A hand or arm or leg breaks we cast
hoping the cast,
            will last
long enough for bones to knit,
the fragments to heal, almost like new.

It is time to stop being nice,
direct poetry is not for every taste,
oh it will have sounds, and it will have bite,
see if you see that it is the topic about which
takes flight.

they serve, and have served,
in hells, where bombs go off like bells
on the hour.  Even when they return ..

they obeyed, they were soldiers first,
it is how they are trained and pains,
are taken so they never forget.  They gave
unselfishly, what did they earn, money to spend, memories that never, never, never, never, end scars in brain tissue that never, never, mend.
what did people who make the decisions learn?

they knew the risks, they got their pay,
don't want to hear, this make them go away,
they can't adopt, a soldier first decision, made them
worse, let them go, then we don't owe them for
their servitude, all those with the attitude.

STOP
STOP
STOP

They got paid in spades,
and back into a home
country where PTSD,
is not treated properly
as it costs money,
minds torn apart,
body still intact,
sometimes, they would
have rather died than the
ones who did,
they come home,
estranged, seeming deranged,
all their nerve endings are
still on combat mission mode,
in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, to name too few
or wish they were,
wish they could go back
and fix what is broken
in country,
in the hunt inside each of them,
inside to fix so they don't go
through it,

AGAIN,
AGAIN, and
AGAIN.

Losing friends,
lost relationships,
losing wives,
parents died while
they were away,
over there, over there,
kids they knew,
end up ...dead,
same age as their
own, who they come
home to, and they are
supposed to soldier on,
get through this,
the sick leave, constant medical interventions,
to prove they are unworthy of any attentions,
the men returning are injured,
but certain talking heads speak
lies told by lips that are perjured,
to give a brave face to a false front,
to the truth,

We don't know how to treat PTSD,
in the modern age, wars still rage,
while peace is treated to a dissection,
in the media and war is a boardroom
activity, played with real people,
this isn't about "give peace a chance"
YOU CAN'T,


SO,
take responsibility for the soldiers
who served this country,
they saw things, they should never see,
they heard things, true but unbelievably, so,
they built things, infrastructure,
                      that was fractured,
they lost friends, they lost limbs, they lost
naievete, they lost their faith, they lost what
soldiering was to them,

they pick of the fruit in the center of desert wars, battlefields,
they now know what it is to be like God knowing life
and seeing it flow away like water, even in a dry and dusty
place, so close to Eden.

What is Broken, the safety net and all these lost, have fallen through.