The theocratic cowboy forgetting Vietnam rides
into town on a red horse. He’s praying to himself
not God. War prayers. The red horse
he rides is the horse of blasphemy. Jesus
leads a flower-laden donkey across the Red Sea
in the other direction, his nose full of the stink
of corpses. Buddha and Muhammad offer
cool water from a palm’s shade while young
men die in the rockets’ red glare.
And in the old men’s dreams
René Char asked, “Who stands on the gangplank
directing operations, the captain or the rats?”
Whitman said, “So many young throats
choked on their own blood.” God says nothing.