The Last Shot Got Apollonaire

verdun, argonne
bellieu wood,
the lost battalion
found salvation
in a broken carrier pigeon
left waiting at the station
more dead than alive.

trench-mouth
cotton-mouth
and gangrene oozing;
scarecrows stumble through no-man's land:
who's winning?
who's losing?

mustard gas,
flammenwurfer,
phosphorus grenade;
a whole generation of english poets
playing old maid
(looking suspiciously like
the Queen of Spades)
with 500 Spartans
who rode into the Valley of Death
and saved neo-colonialism
with their dying breath.

The sun never sets on
The Real War.
The soldier of fortune
and the black market whore
may dicker one time
over the price of flesh
(and maybe more)
while the oligarchy
and the commodity cartel
sing "Hail to the Chief"
and wish them well
with a barbed-wire G-clef.