WHY DOVES CRAP ON STATUES

In war, soldiers do courageous things
in service to despotic kings
but empty honor, their death brings
to mothers stooped on calloused knees.

It’s not bugles, each doomed squad heeds,
unreasoned are their bravest deeds.
They blindly follow who careful leads
the callow meek to victories.

Why is it youth who are victimized
and not their leaders sacrificed,
with brilliant courage idolized
in fictitious graveyard elegies

When wars are done, and statues raised
and the fallen men’s leader praised,
the white dove’s amen's are phrased
in boldly excreted epiphanies.

by Gerald Bosacker