Veteran’s Lament

Many years ago with gun in hand in bloody trenches

I nearly lost my life.

I’ll never forget the pain and stenches

While fighting to quell the strife.

Now on Main Street I rest on wooden benches,

For just a moment’s peace I linger

As youth walk by and laugh and curse,

They salute and give ME the third finger.

They know not why I stutter,

Nor why I have a limp.

They just laugh and point, make fun and complain,

They’re what we old timers would call a ‘wimp’.

They don’t seem to understand,

Nor probably even care

Why old men march with kilted band

And in silence remember despair.

Nor why old men sit alone on wooden benches

And stare vacantly into the air,

Nor why tears run down old wrinkled faces

Remembering old comrades no longer there.

They don’t seem to understand

How we battled with grenade and gun,

How we gave up life so there’d be no strife

So they could live free and have fun.

They seem to have neither cares nor goals in life,

A virtual world is all they expect.

But all I ask in my last days

Of THEM is a little respect.

Paton Lodge Lindsay

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