Contents: Chronology and Titles

  

▼  2022 (4)

o  ▼  March (1)

§ The Kamikaze Remembers

o  ▼  February (1)

§ The Growth Cult

o  ▼  January (2)

§ CIRCLING THE BARN

§ Dispatches from Pronoun Hell

·    ▼  2021 (6)

o  ▼  August (2)

§ Thanks For The Life

§ The Danger Now

o  ▼  July (2)

§ DEKE KILGORE, 1944-2021

§ LUCKY THIRTEEN

o  ▼  June (1)

§ In the Paradise of Machines

o  ▼  January (1)

§ The Trump Disease

·    ▼  2020 (10)

o  ▼  November (2)

§ Dreaming of Norah

§ Signs of Decline

o  ▼  October (1)

§ Debate #2: A Good Night for Trannies

o  ▼  September (1)

§ Debate #1: OMG

o  ▼  August (1)

§ Gun Ownership Counts as Masturbation, Judge Finds

o  ▼  July (3)

§ Happy Birthday, Christy

§ On Fish Romance

§ Columbus Day

o  ▼  January (2)

§ On Insults

§ Democratic Debate # 9000 (It Feels Like): A Climat...

·    ▼  2019 (13)

o  ▼  December (2)

§ The Trump Record

§ Impeachment Christmas

o  ▼  November (1)

§ Ass Me No Questions

o  ▼  September (1)

§ Buchenwald Concentration Camp

o  ▼  August (1)

§ For Norah: Where the Dead Go

o  ▼  July (3)

§ Dem Debate # 3: Revenge of the Center, Not

§ The Sumbitch Party

§ Madonna of the Rocket

o  ▼  June (2)

§ Debate II: Uncle Joe Takes a Hit

§ Ready, Aim, Maybe Not

o  ▼  May (2)

§ Waiting For Nancy

§ Notes on a Yellow Pickup

o  ▼  February (1)

§ Faves From My Bitch List

·    ▼  2018 (6)

o  ▼  July (1)

§ Fellatio in Finland

o  ▼  June (2)

§ Summits of Stupidity

§ My List

o  ▼  February (3)

§ The Uses of Euphony

§ Dear Editor

§ Intent on Hostiles

·    ▼  2017 (7)

o  ▼  December (1)

§ Disagreeing to Agree

o  ▼  November (2)

§ Notes On a Secret History

§ Two Thousand Words About a Word

o  ▼  September (2)

§ Flag Country

§ Shirts and Skins

o  ▼  January (2)

§ Some Nasty Thoughts About Torture

§ Trump and the Art of Insult

·    ▼  2016 (10)

o  ▼  December (1)

§ Frisking the Governor’s Daughter: On Puns

o  ▼  November (2)

§ When War Comes

§ Flagging Enthusiasm

o  ▼  August (1)

§ What to Feel About Cecil

o  ▼  March (2)

§ Cut Hand

§ Unready For Hillary

o  ▼  February (1)

§ Fond Allusions

o  ▼  January (3)

§ Reparations: Don't Go There

§ The Use of Literature

§ Killing Tom Dooley

·    ▼  2015 (1)

o  ▼  December (1)

§ The Kaboom Virus

 

The Kamikaze Remembers

 

 

[Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, with its terrifying intimations of global conflict, has me remembering this old poem of mine, FWIW. First published in Whetstone 63, December, 2002. — JK.]

 

 

Of History’s blood-drinkers

We were some of the gentlest,

Shy younger sons, passed over

In the first calls; silent

At dawn in the hungry classrooms, 

Bashful in the dark streets going home. 

Not a man of my squadron who would dare

Raise his voice to his mother.

 

Japan will remember, they said,

This glory is forever.

Anyway it was the fashion,

More or less, for boys everywhere:

Russians at Stalingrad, Germans

In submarines in the lost Atlantic,

The Yankees at Midway, not so long ago,

In their decrepit planes; 

Our own in Asia all those years. 

So what was strange?

Too polite to live, we tied

Our scarves, we drank our saki,

And off we went: most to fall

Like sizzling stones in the gray

And unremembering sea; just a few

To visit the strangling ships

In such fireballs and mushroom clouds 

That hope flared darkly again

In the Planning Office. So we 

Prolonged a while the hideous mistake

And that was glory.                       

 

But nothing is forever.  Trifocalled

And gray, the last of our old classmates 

Come smiling from the golf course.

Steadied by successful lives, they

Pause, frown, shake their heads

And cannot bring our faces back.

One day the world itself will fail

In flames of the expanding sun.

And what in all the darkness then

Can repay the scent of evening in the streets,

A lover’s smile, a moment’s breath?