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And then after
that sort of stuff

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I often go back to writing poems
about Greek and Roman empires

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because the United States
is in an imperial position.

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Often we go off
fighting imperial wars

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to make new world
order just the way

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Greece and Rome did and look
what happened to them you know.

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So here's a couple of
poems from ancient times.

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Greek first.

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Part of my own memories
of World War Two.

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It's called "Stentor
and Mourning."

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"Sunday was calm and airy
but artillery over the hill

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made us too nervous to like it.

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Some private tacked his
tin mirror to a palm tree

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and shaved using his helmet
for a bowl that would not

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hold much water Monday night.

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I wondered, stretched
out in the wild

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in the sleepy diarrhea of fear
why soldiers fear remarks more

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than a probable mutilation
and swore myself some day

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after the important war
to a rule of disobedience

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as the bravest way.

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Nevertheless, the
captain's football voice,

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bully as acne and
athlete's foot,

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commands as public
law, Prussian as gossip

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or the discipline of smiles.

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Just like when Hera the
goddess rallied the Greeks

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as they cried by
their ships, she

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yelled from Stentor's mouth,
and they fought again,

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not for Helen and souvenirs
or even the gods' graces,

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but for Greek good opinion.

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Now, after survivor's Friday
in the short weekend of peace,

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I hear that why we fight
is for our buddy's safety

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or for vengeance for his death.

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But I hold that most
of us nurture a fear

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in secret by and large
about our state's power.

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Some of us unknown in arms
can be Patroclus in his onrush

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or Achilles in his sulk
against the private feet

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of doing as we goddamn please.

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Or charge a public hill
to an approved early death

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under the national eagle."

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