AFTER THE WAR

Who is this puny man,
that walks the earth,
with an infantrymans crouch.
The shoulders bowed,
that once carried the instruments
of staccato death.
Who died and died
and yet still lived
to view his suffering
with a cynical eye.
Who lives despite them,
and not by their approval.
To be a hero tis simple enough;
you must be dead!
Yet he lives,
to his own reproach,
not a hero, a fleeting fame,
but a man who was,
and yet is not,
judged,
in his frailty.