The General Rode Away

A Poem By Mike Shaner

The General

Mike Shaner

He marched armies

into war

He saw the battlefields

Where a list of casualties

Totaled up the score

Now the world is changing

And new truths reveal old lies

His eyes fixed on a ground washed with blood

And tears from orphaned mother's eyes

He thought aloud

and mumbled to himself

"There is a truth in reason

there is a reason war is hell

A nation in constant war

Cannot be good"

As he looked at the rubble that lay

Where brilliant mansions proudly stood

but the bombs exploded and babies died

as a nation brimmed with pride

The day the general rode away

The paper dollar cannot afford

the price of gasoline or milk by the gallon

And the senator stood in Arizona

Preaching exceptionalism and a new challenge

And the general stared

Solemn at the gunfire rain

And wondered if his people

were just too damned blind to change

Back home the world seemed small

And the cracks were tearing the walls

As the police drove tanks on urban battlefields

And Congress was busy passing laws

but the bombs exploded and babies died

as a nation brimmed with pride

The day the General rode away

The child that stood

with helpless hands raised

Stinging from the powder

of a badge burning in his face

Another orphaned mother crying

At a dream and a future gone

And a sad poet wonders

when freedom lost her home

He stares out an empire

Crumbling to itself

"There's a truth in reason

there is a reason war is hell"

He cries beside an alter

At the death of a dissident

He shed himself of his halter

The day the poet picked up his pen

And a nations foolish pride

was lost to shame as it died

The day the general rode away