Tuesday, March 24, 2026

What Is Known

What I, not so secretly, want to do is say I told you so,

Especially after those decades of hearing,


You’’re crazy, that never happened, that’s not true,

That’s not how it was, your memory is wrong,


Now I see documents, authority, the authority 

You said you didn’t care about, who cares


What those books, or papers, or forms say, they

Are wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.


Well, maybe everything that was ever printed 

Is crazy or mistaken or wrong or couldn’t


Have happened, especially not in any of those

Ways that are written down by idiots


Who didn’t know any better because who are

They to question the words of a hero?


But now, seeing names and dates and places

And times in well remembered cursives


Of George and Helena, for their golden boy James,

declaring on penalty of perjury their reality, 


We the undersigned do solemnly swear this minor

child of ours into the protective care


Of the United States Marine Corps where he

will become a man of god and honour,


but who, despite each promise wanted 

his momemt in the tropical sun,


which wish came true as he spent the entire

duration achieving a Hawai’ian tan.


A calm, like a warm south Pacific wave rolls 

Over me without the fog of battles past.

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