Christmas, 1943

Being first a farmer in
The Great Depression,
He always hated Christmas,
No matter the
Endless cups of
Amnesiac cheer
A commercialized
Holiday offered.

And secondly why?

On Christmas Eve 1943,
a teenage sailor,
residue of hay bales still clinging to his ears,
dreaming of thistles and harvests,
horse-powered ploughing
in the middle of the South Pacific,
was still seasick when he
switched duties with his
best friend,

But on Christmas Day 1943
a teenage sailor met
a never-ending war

On Christmas Day 1943,
a teenager who rode
ponies to school
watched 108 of his comrades
kick and scream prematurely into
dark, wet un-holidayed sepulchers--
wailing armless torsos,
legless arm-flailing torsos,
always screaming, "don't leave me!";
swam instinctively against
the violent sucking black
hole

On Christmas Day 1943
War's cruel gift exchange.
God's inscrutable will.
The year without a Santa Claus

On Christmas Day, 1943
a pompous and derelict Captain
laughed at the alarms of his
subordinates--

Murder--

On Christmas Day, 1943,
surviving men lined up their shoes on deck,
insanely perfect, as their drills
had promised,
and leapt to their deaths

On Christmas Day,
a teenaged Veteran, father, husband
gives painful gifts to his wife
and his children;
refuses all presents,
refuses the waste,
refuses the universe,
and Memory,
all in vain, in vain

On Christmas Day, 1943
a teenage boy, a husband, a father
a Veteran,
was saved by a passing ship,
And lost his life,

On Christmas Day, 1943.