Like twelve million other American boys,
my youth was spent in a war -
Three years a deck-hand on "Liberty" ships
when I finally caught a "C-4"!

Oh! What a beautiful ship she was -
with "king posts" instead of "booms"!
She even had ice-water fountains
and our "foc'sle" was "hotel rooms"!

We left New York in May of '45,
alone for a six-week steam -
No convoy, just beautiful, star-filled nights
and NARY a submarine!

'Gibralter - to Egypt and through the "Ditch"
to a torridly humid Red Sea.
Despite salt tablets almost hourly,
that hot steel almost pan-fried me!

Across the broad Indian Ocean
to remote and mystical Ceylon;
'Up the Hooghly River to Calcutta
to scenes I HOPE are dead and gone.

We tied up at Prince Edward Docks,
about three miles out of town.
Outside was a 'cesspool" of poverty -
Why? Those gentle people were brown!

An endless stream walked IN to the city,
and an endless stream returned;
A procession of listless "robots"
that God AND Nature had spurned!

We drank, caroused and "got tattooed"
like ALL "ugly" Americans do -
Bue ONE scene was SEARED in my memory,
and I MUST relate it to you!

We were shopping in a dark market -
ivory, brass - meat covered with flies!
When I chanced to glance across the street,
and COULDN'T believe my EYES!

A woman lay in that dirt and grime -
Sobbing! Moaning! Forlorn, but IGNORED!
An old woman FINALLY knelt beside her,
a nd IN THAT FILTH . . a child was born!

The crowd trudged apathetically on
as she rose with the babe at her breast -
She wiped the child . . and then herself -
and . . . CONTINUED ALONG with the rest!

And I should BELIEVE in the "Majesty of Man?
or ANYONE'S "noble" panacea!?
I'll ALWAYS remember that mother and child
and SNEER at the very idea!!

Four BILLION helpless humans -
and a few million of us - richly blessed!
But we're soft and smug and complacent -
no longer the "best of the best".

We ARE subject to "survival of the fittest"
as History forcibly demonstrates -
OUR descent to listless robots begins:
our OWN LEADERS lack virtuous traits!

The "have-not" masses keep struggling -
loving their sad and hapless parents,
And when WE fall like the Greeks and Romans
they'll be OUR "heir apparents"!

I'm as guilty as the worst of us -
I lost the values my forefathers knew,
But I'm saddened by my birth-right BETRAYED;
and I AM ashamed . . . are YOU!?

.................................................................................................

A Friend's Critique

If that was a Sudra in Calcutta
who bore that baby in the gutter,
Why should we care much at all?
'cause Sudras are "untouchable"!
(Sad, but NOT insufferable)

My Response

That ugly birth in old Calcutta
didn't faze you like it shoulda.
I curse the Hindu Gods and Buddha!
The Sudra "caste" is Helpless! Neuter!
(And you . . .)
" Yep, she's sick . . . so SHOOT HER"!

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