gershon hepner - to hell and back

He said he’d been to hell and back
and helped arrange the sneak attack
that turned the tide to victory,
himself wrote the obituary
of valiant foes whom he admired.
Indeed, their bravery inspired
the many lines he wrote, with pathos;
defeating foes for him was bathos,
for nothing seemed to make him sorrier
than butchering a noble warrior.

He felt that every cause was just;
in arms, not men, he had most trust
and admiration, every moment
he fought, respecting his opponent.
Yet even in the dreadful carnage,
he still, with poetry, could manage
to find kind words to say about
those men who put his life to rout,
though seeing hell up to each eyeball,
far worse than you’ll read in the Bible
or tract eschatological.
He said: “Life isn’t logical,
that’s why we fought and why we bled,
and why there are so many dead
who can’t enjoy the fruits of battle!
but soldiers should not die like cattle,
so I will make each one immortal
in poetry.” They saw him chortle,
and wondered was the man alive or,
perhaps not quite, a lone survivor,
who only could come back in word,
for words so often are absurd,
but never could return in deed,
because his fight became the seed
of death in him, and worse, of doubt,
so even inside, he was out.

Though he had been to hell and back,
in order to bring Helen back,
Penelope his wife unravels
the way his troubled mind now travels,
as she’d unraveled what she spun
before the Trojan War was won,
and though no battle had been lost
she shared like him its dreadful cost.

9/6/96,11/13/97,6/7/06

gershon hepner

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-hell-and-back/