The Dreams of Yesterday
What happened
to the dreams of
yesterday?
Where have the gone,
I say?
There was an
interruption known as
World War
Two
which took three long
years
and brought about internal
tears
for a man cannot cry
out loud
all the crying must be done
in silence
bourne deeply
within the
soul
but the marks of internal
tears
show more and more with
the passing
of the
years!
And now that I'm old and
gray
those marks show
themselves
every
day.
I try to keep them hidden,
cover them up
with forced
smiles
and such
but the aches grow larger
and the truth
comes out
that deep within
lies broken dreams
and endless
scenes
of death and destruction,
of blood
running so free
and so very red
that a veteran's choice
is to be dead
instead!
So dreams have been
smothered from
youth to
hoary head and
it would have been better
that I were
dead.
Those who die
never cry again,
though they be covered
o'er with
foreign soil
or salt waters so
very
deep,
which drown the dreams
of
yesterday!
PTSD
is a dream disclaimer
of the most
difficult
kind
for it attacks the
mind
and never allows
reality to
find
those dreams
which once invaded the minds of
innocent youths
who dared to
dream
of such things as
love
and blue skies always
above.
The scars of war
lie not only on some
distant
shore
but lie deep within the
souls of men
who held the gun
or flew the
planes into the sun
to down a
fighter or a bomber on a
final run
or those who sailed
the ships
out-witting the
under water
blips
of an enemy sub
whose task it was
to do them
in
like the heavy cruiser
Indianapolis
who took a torpedo from an
enemy sub
and in just fourteen
minutes
went to the bottom
of the
sea
never more to see the
blue sky
with eight-hundred me to
die
eaten of hungry sharks
in the daylight and
the dark.
Where are their dreams?
Where have they
gone?
No time to say goodbye
but time enough
to die
the question is asked
a thousand times,
Why?
The dreams of
yesterday
have faded fast
away and deep inside
of many a
breast
are old men who have
had no rest
since the dreams of
yesterday.
Will you tell me how
to cope
and to find some
hope
of finding those dreams
which we had
yesterday?
I have looked and looked
in every corner,
every nook; but those dreams have
vanished!
Could it be that
I shall see the ghost
of those dreams
by and by
when I ascend to the
sky
on that happy day
when I die?
Wasted dreams come apart
at the
seams
of many a veteran
who thinks quietly to himself,
"What would I be
had it not been for the
dreaded
PTSD?"
God have mercy on all of
us
who answered the call
to protect and preserve all those
whom we love!
The battle
still rages inside night
after night
when the Mares come
with the fading light
of day.
They know the address of
every youth
whose dreams have gone
astray
and night after night
they come to
stay.
With pounding hooves
and neighing
they come like thunder
from dark caves
under
Mother Earth,
to torment us who have lost
our dreams
because of some crazy war
which elected leaders
would not avoid.
We wonder about their dreams
if they have come apart
at the seams.
Do the Mares of the Night
know their address
and visit them
so they have no
rest?
If you should find a dream
floating in the air
catch it, don't despair,
but bring it to me
to share.
I could use a dream or
two.
So this muse must
have an end
as I think of friend to friend
all of whom had
dreams of yesterday
whose dreams
have gone
away.
Two thousand of us
a day
are wasting away,
gone to find our dreams
of
yesterday!
Perhaps we shall find
them
high up in the sky
where Jesus has kept
them in our
mansion
fair
Safe and secure
they are
under lock and key
the dreams
for you
and the dreams
for me and on that glad
day
we'll never more
let them drift
away.
Goodbye Mares
of the
night;
goodbye to all
the scenes
which have kept us
awake;
and goodbye to
lost dreams
of
yesterday!
