when Taps is played

"after we lost our first soldier, (a sniper shot his throat out) there was a ceremony for the battalion.  I didn't know the guy, but others did.  there was something hollow about the whole thing.  how many times can you say the exact same things for dead men before the fraudulence becomes obvious?"  --Scott Kirkpatrick, 2005

when Taps is played

we are at attention

saluting

a soldier only some of us

knew.

30,000 feet above

through a cloudy crying blue 

sky

a fighter plane screams.

nothing can be said,

really,

for a dead man

I didn't know.

the Commanding General

nods his head

at words repeated

over a thousand times.

he died for liberty.

he died so that others may be

free.

he died a hero.

nothing is said of politics.

nothing is said about the city

two million people who don't

want us here.

hundreds of children

throwing bricks

gunshots in the night

martyrs waiting for us to gun

them down.

nothing is said about the 

bullet that tore a soldier's 

throat out.

when roll is called

there is only the sound

of a Private First Class

who does not answer back.