My favorite poem is one I wrote back in the early 1980s.

Growing up in the 60s, I began writing poetry in grammar school and continued until well after graduating from college. Back then, almost everyone dabbled in poetry. You had the Ginsberg aficionados, the dark, brooding remnants of the Beat generation who labored long and hard over every syllable because, well, what they had to say was very important. You had the Dylan wannabees who were angry about the war and political injustice and pretty much everything else in the world, and thought they could change things with the stroke of a pen. And you had the Lennon-McCartney devotees who, truth be told, were more lyricists than poets who saw everything in the world through rose-colored glasses. 

Like most young people in that era, I grew up deeply troubled by the Viet Nam war and began to question everything my government told me. As time went by and I looked around the world, however, I began to realize that it wasn’t just my government. There were governments all over the world sacrificing their innocent young men in places they had no business being. So one day in 1981, I sat down and poured out my feelings in a poem I called “Belfast, And Other Tourist Traps.”  

Do you know what’s so disturbing about it. After almost 30 years, it should sound outdated and old. But it doesn’t. Just change the nationalities of the soldiers and the arenas of conflict, and the words ring as true today as they did almost three decades ago. What does that say about the progress mankind has made? Particularly to a generation who thought they could change the world by preaching mantras like “Give peace a chance.”

In one way, it’s kind of ironic. Growing up, I used to dream of writing poetry that would seem timeless. As the old adage goes, “Be careful what you wish for.”  

BELFAST, AND OTHER TOURIST TRAPS

British soldier in a doorway

Shivers through the morning cold,

And waits.

Listening, wondering, when it's over

(Will it ever be over?)

Can he ever go home again? 

Russian soldier, hurt and bleeding,

Knows he'll never walk again

And cries.

Listening, wondering, when it's over

(Is it already over?)

Can he ever go home again? 

Cuban soldier in Angola

Tells himself he will survive,

And prays.

Listening, wondering, when it's over

(It will never be over!)

Can he ever go home again? 

And the man sitting next to me wanted to know,

"What was it like in Viet Nam?"

I thought a minute, and said to him,

"It was like Northern Ireland,

        Or Afghanistan,

                Or Angola,

Or anywhere else where men of high morals

But no conscience seek to become heroes

With somebody else's blood.

Where governments seek to grow bigger and stronger

By eating their young in foreign cafes." 

"I see," said he, "you're a pacifist."

"No," I replied, "I'm a human being."                                                 

© Bruce A. Bennett 1981