THE PRICE OF TRUTH IN A COUNTRY THAT ONLY WANTS GOOD NEWS

And the ghost of the good gray poet
entered my poetry tent
uninvited
 
camped outside the Shenandoah,
wasting no time or pentameter
 
what qualifies you sir sir
write about war and the suffering
of her solider?
 
the same thing that qualified you, Mr. Whitman,
 
I answered him offering a taste of Virginia
moonshine,
 
He declined, as I was running out of objections,
I jump to the present tense
 
throw the dice slowly,
 
and held my hand with nothing more,
than a blood soaked rag I'd used to stop the bleed of a
lad who rammed his Stars and Bars straight into the gullet
of Grant's finest canon,
 
Blood is all you have, he asked me with a tear.
 
Yes, isn't that enough, Mr. Whitman sir
and the courage to write down hard,
and read it honest.
 
their cries are heard not by a nation
in mourning, defeat, or victory's call,
but by you and me
 
and their mothers.
 
He moved away from me, taking his kerosene
lantern, pulling on the left tent flap
 
he turns and looks squarely in my face,
 
To report what has taken place here,
 can be and shall ever be,
 
the function of the poet,
 
is to describe this,
a curse beginning for forgiveness,
 
it will drive you mad.
 
 
Copyright, William "Wild Bill" Taylor
December, 2003