Dramatic Monologue: The Soldier

I

…Please no funeral notes

On the raging roulette. Slots

I gouge my eyes with. I am

An ace and two diamonds, jack

I can’t keep carving tallies on my wrist.

Please open your storybooks

One by one, tell me

Those south Tequila days,

When the sun was high,

And my love lay by my side.

II

Slots I gouge my eyes with. An

Ace for an ace; good Jack,

That’s all you needed,

That’s all you smoked.

I wrote symphonies in jesters’ cards

And Death wore his jester’s mask.

We had parties in Babylon,

Or Paradise, and swung

To easy jazz. Mr. Blues wailed

While we brawled between chairs, bars,

Too.

My comrades were fly

As the Avian flu.

Then the war began.

III

They gave us guns and said

Go shoot. Shoot where? We

Aimed at birds and tanks,

At absurd candles in the sky.

Good aim if you shot a plane.

The cities went nova while

We marched, godlike,

And speared little babies,

Mothers, daughters, all pinned

To our perfect General’s maps with

Square pegs.

At night we beamed to Valhalla.

They re-attached our stumps.

IV

Then:

at day we returned,

The cities went nova,

Comrades fell like bowling pins

And into Satan’s gutters.

The ground dotted in holes,

Like the insides of silver

Spoons where acid gathers.

Earth shook and lizards howled.

We fought for all that is holy,

For curtains and coffees and C.O.D’s.

Absurd, really.

We marched, godlike.

V

Marchingandmarchingandmarchingandmarching…

VI

Till at last they bit the horizon and dogged

Us down, we fell with the guns, the

Whole damned lot of us, like heroic

Cowboys we fell, in our

Ridiculous spaceships and zoot suits,

VII

Fallingfallingfallingfalling…

VIII

What’s the whole damn point?

IX

If you must know there is

No end to this tale. I really am

No martyr, no artist, no lover.

I just can’t keep tallying Death on my arm.

Someday I’ll write a symphony,

Someday I’ll paint a sky.

But for now,

I’ll spin the roulette and pop the trigger.

Back to those Tequila days.

--

NOTE: Please, please, tell me if this can pass off as a Dramatic Monologue or Ballad. Or if it's even teacher-friendly. This is due TOMORROW for creative writing... and of course, last-minute me is screwed.