Merry Christmas, My Friend

Via BlackFive (voted best military blog, 2004), another version of a traditional yuletide poem. This one is set far from the madding crowd of Beltway and Mall, the foto-ops and sound bites, neo-cons and neo-coms,  Mother Sheehanites and Haliburtonites, the pros, the cons, the 'he lied' and 'look who died.' This is about a man, un-sung, un-celebrated. It begins...

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS, MY FRIEND

‘Twas the night before Christmas, he lived all alone, In a one-bedroom house made of plaster and stone. I had come down the chimney, with presents to give and to see just who in this home did live. As I looked all about, a strange sight I did see, no tinsel, no presents, not even a tree. No stocking by the fire, just boots filled with sand. On the wall hung pictures of a far distant land. With medals and badges, awards of all kind, a sobering thought soon came to my mind. For this house was different, unlike any I’d seen. This was the home of a U.S. Marine......(full text at BlackFive)......

Comments

[scott edwards]

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!
Thank you, Gringoman!
MY comment in the thread below concerning Secular Sammy:
"..far from the madding topic" only an oblique reference to "Senor Pastoral" himself, Thomas Hardy.

But Gringoman went for the whole enchilada:
YOUR co-optation of Hardy via copying Scott:
".. far from the madding crowd" inverting ol' Hardy boyz' heath and fen into some iambic parody of killers recapturing conscience.
Ontogeny racapitulates philogeny, gringoman. call it fair use...and I tip my hat.

[scott edwards]

While lacking in the patticake charm of les soldats qui frappe avec les plume (let alone being humbled in the work of the almighty), the blank verse here still conveys a cetain je ne sais quois that is 'swept under the radar' (gitmoized, if you will) but a current happily ignored in the make believe world of les freepers americaine:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n01/wein01_.html

Funny it took a Murthagram from the generals...

[Dan Cameron Rodill]

Comrade Eduardos:

Is this the language the tovarich progressives (not obssessives?)speak to themselves in Chile today? Any possibility of a translation for the average American imperialist? Who knows, this Marxobabble may even contain a nugget or two of sense. We'll see. First, try being coherent. Go ahead, give it a shot.