At The VFW Hall

 

Odysseus can't make it. He sent me

As his replacement. Less wily though I am

And unaccustomed to pacific life,

I'll try to say a few words. As you know,

The VFW has done much good

To men in greaves. In many other states

We are the only counselors can bear

Those who in their privies can hear their bowels

Hectored with fear and stress. To those who drink

Their bowls uncut with water, we dispense

Advice and unguents. The Friends of Nestor,

One of our byblows, offer anecdotes

To aid insomniacs. And men who wear

Envenomed shirts and arrows through their pecs,

Who look like fretted porpentines, and weep

When they attempt a sacrifice, attend

Domestic Violence: Making Hearth a Home

And are the calmer for it. I myself,

Mistaking sheep for Trojans, thrice have tried

To join my comrades in their dreamless sleep.

I may be somewhat medicated now;

But in your faces I perceive contempt,

Who never once felt Ares twist your guts,

Or raped a captive, playing she was Helen.

Superior to poontang, I expect,

You nancy stay-at-homes, you gormless helots—

Where are your scars? Show me your hands. Which one

Of you lay bleeding on a bloody field

And cursed your mom for opening her legs?

The roar of Scamander, rising from his bed,

Wiping the plain away with us, the shape

Of what he swept away, I hear in rain.

Let the son of Laertes make his own speech

Next time. We brought some color slides. My friend

Diomedes will show them to you now.