POEMS
Irving Feldman
POEM OF THE OLD AVANT-GARDE
Coming home, cut to pieces , but victorious
and looking forward - you write that , write it good–
after our rough times off on the frontier ,
we met them going out the road we traveled back.
Oh, they were a cheerful bunch-and young, my god, young!
"Hey," they said, "your old king died or something years ago ,
hardly anyone's left you could have known-and us ,
we're on our way to do some fancy soldiering for
his son or his son's son , maybe, someone like that.
Boy, you oldtimers are going to have it good!
It's all
history
what you done - we learned it in school.
You're okay, you saved the country . They'll do right by you
- same as they will by us when
we
turn around."
So back we went and got paraded up and down .
Strangers shook our hands, strangers kissed our cheeks.
Strangers shouted, "Marvelous! Congratulations!"
Strangers whispered to their children on the street ,
"See the fine old heroes! See them marching by!"
That was us: marching, marching, always "marching by"
-the Immortals of the month , the grizzled darlings
of the snotnoses who cranked the awe-machine.
And we , it shames me to admit it but
we gobbled it up, like we were good for nothing
except to blubber in public about "it's wonderful
to be back home" and "we're so grateful you're grateful."
And strangers took us out to see the monument we were ,
and watched the teary, shining expressions cross
our scarred old faces when we saw what we'd become.
How happy they looked , making us the gift of ourselves
- sponsors of our last shape, our final future!
Then strangers walked us into the pensioned twilight
where we no longer knew ourselves . . . and nothing nothing
nothing came back . . . only this feeling of strangeness
that kept you company . . . with everything spellbound
