Patton's Poetry
FEAR (1945)
I am that dreadful, blighting thing,
Like rat holes to the flood.
Like rust that gnaws the faultless blade,
Like microbes to the blood.
I know no mercy and no truth,
The young I blight, the old I slay.
Regret stalks darkly in my wake,
And ignominy dogs my way.
Sometimes, in virtuous garb I rove,
With facile talk of easier way;
Seducing where I dare not rape,
Young manhood, from it's honor's sway.
Again, in awesome guise I rush,
Stupendous, through the ranks of war,
Turning to water, with my gaze,
Hearts that, before, no foe could awe.
The maiden who has strayed from right,
To me must pay the mead of shame.
The patriot who betrays his trust,
To me must owe his tarnished name.
I spare no class, nor cult, nor creed,
My course is endless through the year.
I bow all heads and break all hearts,
All owe me homage -- I am FEAR.
TO OUR FIRST DEAD (1918)
They died for
Who, in this war, have faltered not to go
At duty's bidding, even unto death.
And yet, no deaths which history records,
Were fought with greater consequence than theirs.
A nation shuddered as their spirits passed;
And unborn babies trembled in the womb,
In sympathetic anguish at their fate.
Far from their homes and in ungainful strife
They gave their all, in that they gave their life;
While their young blood, shed in this distant land,
Shall be more potent than the dragon's teeth
To raise up soldiers to avenge their fall.
Men talked of sacrifice, but there was none;
Death found them unafraid and free to come
Before their God. In righteous battle slain
A joyous privilege theirs; the first to go
In that their going doomed to certain wrath
A thousand foemen, for each drop they gave
Of sacramental crimson, to the cause.
And so their youthful forms all dank and stiff,
All stained with tramplings in unlovely mud,
We laid to rest beneath the soil of
So often honored with the hero slain;
Yet never greatlier so than on this day,
When we interred our first dead in her heart.
There let them rest, wrapped in her verdant arms,
Their task well done. Now, from the smoke veiled
sky,
They watch our khaki legions pass to certain victory,
Because of them who showed us how to die.
BILL (1918)
Bill, he kept racin' the motor,
For fear that the damned thing would die.
While I fiddled 'round with the breech block
And wished for a piece of your pie.
It's funny the way it affects you,
When you're waitin' for the
signal to go.
There's none of the high moral feeling
About which the newspapers blow.
For myself, I always is hungry,
While Bill thought his spark plugs was foul.
Some guys talks o' sprees they has been on,
And one kid, what's croaked, thought of school.
At last, I seen Number One signal;
I beat on the back o' Bill's neck.
He slipped her the juice and she started,
And Bill he ain't never come back.
The first news we had of the Boches
Was shot splinters, right in the eye.
I cussed twice as loud as the Colonel,
And forgot all about the old pie.
A Boche he runs out with a tank gun;
I gave him H.E. in the guts.
You ought to have seen him pop open!
They sure was well fed, was them sluts.
We wiped out two nests with case shot,
And was just gettin' into a third,
When we plunked in a hole full of water.
That God-damned Bill sure was a bird.
He hollers, "Frank, you're married;
If only one gets out, it's you."
And he rammed me up out of the turret...
I guess that's about all I knew.
A stinkin' whizz-bang beaned
me,
Or I might of rescued Bill,
But it's too late now. He's sleepin'
By our tank, on that God-damned hill.
They gave him a Medal of Honor,
For savin' me for you,
So if it's a boy we'll name it Bill,
It's the least and the most we can do.
DEAD PALS
Dickey, we've trained and fit and died,
Yes, drilled and drunk and bled,
And shared our chuck and our bunks in life.
Why part us now we're dead?
Would I rot so nice away from you,
Who has been my pal for a year?
Will Gabriel's trumpet waken me,
If you ain't there to hear?
Will a parcel of bones in a wooden box
Remind my Ma of me?
Or isn't it better for her to think
Of the kid I used to be?
It's true some preacher will get much class
A tellin' what guys we've been,
So, the fact that we're not sleeping with pals,
Won't cut no ice for him.
They'll yell, "Hurrah!"
And every spring they'll decorate our tomb,
But we'll be absent at the spot
We sought, and found, our doom.
The flags and flowers won't bother us,
Our free souls will be far --
Holdin' the line in sunny
Where we died to win the war.
Fact is, we need no flowers and flags
For each peasant will tell his son,
"Them graves on the hill is the graves of
Yanks, Who died to lick the Hun."
And instead of comin' every spring
To squeeze a languid tear,
A friendly people's loving care
Will guard us all the year.
VALOR
When all hearts are opened,
And all the secrets known,
When guile and lies are banished,
And subterfuge is gone.
When God rolls up the curtain,
And hidden truths appear,
When the ghastly light of Judgement Day,
Brings past and present near...
Then shall we know what once we knew,
Before wealth dimmed our sight,
That of all sins, the blackest is
The pride which will not fight.
The meek and pious have a place,
And necessary are,
But valor pales their puny rays,
As does the sun a star.
What race of men since time began,
Has ever yet remained,
Who trusted not it's own right hand,
Or from brave deeds refrained?
Yet spite the fact for ages known,
And by all lands displayed,
We still have those who prate of peace,
And say that war is dead.
Yes vandals rise who seek to snatch
The laurels from the brave,
And dare defame heroic dead,
Now filling hero graves.
They speak of those who love,
Like Christ's, exceeds the lust of life
And murderers slain to no avail,
A useless sacrifice.
With infamy without a name,
They mock our fighting youth,
And dare decry great hearts who die,
Battling for right and truth.
Woe to the land which, heeding them,
Lets avarice gain the day,
And trusting gold it's right to hold,
Lets manly might decay.
Let us, while willing yet for peace,
Still keep our valor high,
So when our time of battle comes,
We shall not fear to die.
Make love of life and ease be less,
Make love of country more.
So shall our patriotism be
More than an empty roar.
For death is nothing, comfort less,
Valor is all in all;
Base nations who depart from it,
Shall sure and justly fall.
THE FLY
O, sweet slight friend
Who frolics free
O'er cactus plain
Or sandy lee,
No one can lonely
Long remain
While hearkening to
Thy blithe refrain
When meal time comes
Thy friendly face
Is everywhere about
The place.
You taste the coffee
Eat oatmeal
And from the cakes the
Syrup steal.
And though we know that
You have been
On the hot turds
In some latrine,
And while you sipped
The dainties there
You gathered germs in
Your long hair,
To spread them
Wantonly upon
Each dainty meat
Or new baked bun.
Still, we can't blame you
For we know
That all we eat
To shit will go.
And after meals
When we would feign
Seek Morpheus' arms
From labor pain,
You gently break
Our sweet repose
By deftly fucking
In our nose.
Our ears and mouths
You then explore
And leave there
Pus from some old sore.
Then when at night
You needs must sleep
Onto our tented
Roofs you creep.
And when the Witching
Hour has come
Your dainty farts
Pervade the gloom,
While like the dews
From heaven fall
Your tiny turds
So round and small.
And if in battle
We should die
Around us first
Would swarm the fly.
You'd do your best
To ease the pain
And swarm around
Each oozing vein.
Yes, in memoria to
A friend
A hundred thousand
Eggs you'd lend.
And as through maggots
Sent by you
Our gruesome corpse
More gruesome grew.
You'd swarm in myriads
Feasting high
You'd hum our dirge
You goddamned fly!
THE TURDS OF THE SCOUTS
The scout sat in the cactus shade
He labored mightily
That he did try to take a shit
Was very plain to see.
For days and weeks he'd ridden hard
He'd eaten many a meal
Yet every morn he waits in vain
Some bowel movement to feel.
Now scouts by nature are so bad
That long-imprisoned turds
Must soon assume their parent's shape
And too be evil birds.
The faces which in common folk
Resembles pumpkin pies
In scouts assumes a texture dark
Yes, lives and breathes and sighs.
Now as the scout his labor pressed
At last he seemed to feel
A slimy thing crawl from his ass
And purr against his heel.
He little recked, the hardy brute
The suffering he did cause
He did not pause to wipe his ass
He just pulled up his drawers.
He jumped upon his sore backed horse
And galloped fast away
Oh! little heeded he or cared
What his dying turd would say.
It lay and suffered in the heat
Its limpid eyes rolled high
And from its fast congealing gills
Escaped a gentle sigh.
I came upon it suffering there
I sobbed to see its pain
When the pale green fog my nostrils reached
I held my nose in vain.
I dashed in agony away
My pity turned to pain
And as the sun dipped in the west
It sighed and died amain.
REFERENCE: B AND B3c-24614
FILE: INV. FORM A62B-M. Q.
As Head of the Division of Provision for Revision
Was a man of prompt decision--Morton Quirk.
Ph.D. in Calisthenics, P. D. Q. in Pathogenics
He has just the proper background for the work.
From the pastoral aroma of
With a pittance of a salary in hand
His acceptance had been whetted, even aided and abetted
By emolument that netted some five grand.
So, with energy ecstatic this fanatic left his attic
And hastened on to
Where with verve and vim and vigor, he went hunting for the Nigger
In the woodpile of the W. P. B.
After months of patient process Morton's picular
proboscis
Had unearthed a reprehensible hiatus
In reply by Blair and Blair to his thirteenth questionnaire
In connection with their inventory status.
They had written--"Your directive when effective was defective
"In its ultimate objective--and what's more
"Neolithic hieroglyphic is, to us, much more specific
"Than the drivel you keep dumping at our door."
This sacrilege discovered, Morton fainted--but recovered
Sufficiently to write, "We are convinced
"That sabotage is camouflaged behind perverted persiflage.
"Expect me on the 22nd inst."
But first he sent a checker, then he sent a
checker's checker
Still nothing was disclosed as being wrong.
So a checker's checker's checker came to check the
checker's checker
And the process was laborious and long.
Then followed a procession of the follow-up profession
Through the records of the firm of Blair and Blair.
From breakfast until supper some new super-follow-upper
Tore his hair because of Morton's questionnaire.
The file is closed, completed, though our Hero, undefeated
Carries on in some Department as before.
And Vict'ry is in sight of--not because of--but in
spite of
Doctor Morton's mighty efforts in the war.
WIGGLERS
1921
You can't remember, dearest
For your memory fades too fast,
The beginning of our loving
In the warm and foggy past.
When vapor from the tepid sea
Hung ever in the air,
And rivulets of pinkish mud
Went trickling past us there.
No, you can't remember even
Of the later lukewarm time
When you and I were wigglers,
Wiggling in the pale gray slime.
When our mouths were all our reason
And our bellies all our soul,
When we bred and died and rotted,
By the billion on the shoal.
Yet for ever and forever,
As the cooling waters flow
Past the green of long dead coal fields
Past the continents of snow.
Yes, forever and as truly
As the waters changeless are,
Have I fought for, sought and found thee
As tonight beneath the star.
Ever fearing, ever hoping
Ever winning thee at last,
But to lose thee to regain thee,
In the present from the past.
THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY
Through the travail of the ages,
Midst the pomp and toil of war,
Have I fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon this star.
In the form of many people
In all panoplies of time
Have I seen the luring vision
Of the Victory Maid, sublime.
I have battled for fresh mammoth,
I have warred for pastures new,
I have listed to the whispers
When the race trek instinct grew.
I have known the call to battle
In each changeless changing shape
From the high souled voice of conscience
To the beastly lust for rape.
I have sinned and I have suffered,
Played the hero and the knave;
Fought for belly, shame, or country,
And for each have found a grave.
I cannot name my battles
For the visions are not clear,
Yet, I see the twisted faces
And I feel the rending spear.
Perhaps I stabbed our Savior
In His sacred helpless side.
Yet, I've called His name in blessing
When after times I died.
In the dimness of the shadows
Where we hairy heathens warred,
I can taste in thought the lifeblood;
We used teeth before the sword.
While in later clearer vision
I can sense the coppery sweat,
Feel the pikes grow wet and slippery
When our Phalanx, Cyrus met.
Hear the rattle of the harness
Where the Persian darts bounced clear,
See their chariots wheel in panic
From the Hoplite's leveled spear.
See the goal grow monthly longer,
Reaching for the walls of
Hear the crash of tons of granite,
Smell the quenchless eastern fire.
Still more clearly as a Roman,
Can I see the Legion close,
As our third rank moved in forward
And the short sword found our foes.
Once again I feel the anguish
Of that blistering treeless plain
When the Parthian showered death bolts,
And our discipline was in vain.
I remember all the suffering
Of those arrows in my neck.
Yet, I stabbed a grinning savage
As I died upon my back.
Once again I smell the heat sparks
When my flemish plate
gave way
And the lance ripped through my entrails
As on
In the windless, blinding stillness
Of the glittering tropic sea
I can see the bubbles rising
Where we set the captives free.
Midst the spume of half a tempest
I have heard the bulwarks go
When the crashing, point blank round shot
Sent destruction to our foe.
I have fought with gun and cutlass
On the red and slippery deck
With all Hell aflame within me
And a rope around my neck.
And still later as a General
Have I galloped with Murat
When we laughed at death and numbers
Trusting in the Emperor's Star.
Till at last our star faded,
And we shouted to our doom
Where the sunken road of Ohein
Closed us in it's quivering gloom.
So but now with Tanks a'clatter
Have I waddled on the foe
Belching death at twenty paces,
By the star shell's ghastly glow.
So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, -- but always me.
And I see not in my blindness
What the objects were I wrought,
But as God rules o'er our bickerings
It was through His will I fought.
So forever in the future,
Shall I battle as of yore,
Dying to be born a fighter,
But to die again, once more.