A Patricia Young Poem

a poetry magazine in Canada awarded the 2ND runner up $200 for this third place poem. The first two are no better, but poetry seems addicted to prizes, at least in Canada.

The winner writes a poem about "it" and "i" and and its sad being lonely...an empty profoundness permeates all of it...Owl on the Roof by Jolene Heathcote..the second one is a travel poem in reverse and i enjoyed it's small town charm... Leap by Leslie Vryenhoek and now for the third place poem..drum roll please..

The Big Siesta (or: The End of Modern Warfare)

On Tuesday night all the soldiers in the world fell
asleep and didn't wake until two days later when

they blinked twice and said, Hell we're inn no mood
for fighting, then fell back asleep. And the marines

and the navy seals and the snipers on rooftops, they
all groaned, So damned tired . And the newest recruits,

the peach faced boys, lay down their weapons and
plunged into a slumber from which their sergeants

could not wake them, no matter how they barked
and kicked and threw cold water over the boys'

sleeping faces. Electric shocks zapped a few eyes
open before they close again, heads sinking into

pillows and fields seeded with uranium pellets.
And the generals gathered in bars and canteens

all over the world to compare medals and shining
careers and also to rage against all the lazy mother-

fuckers under their command. If word got out,
their five star asses were gonna be toast. But after

a bit the generals grew sick of hearing themselves
fret like old women who couldn't find their bus

passes. How tedious their schemes of death--
what wedding party to blow to bits, where to

drop the latest bunker-busting, daisy-cutting,
phosphorescent bomb? The generals knocked back

one last whiskey, then stumbled into parking lots
and foreign hotels, muttering, The wars, the wars,

the beautiful wars, while the soldiers sank deeper
into a sleep more profound than the arch of a

bridge or a girl's sandaled foot, boys who babbled
unintelligible sentences as the fax machines whirred

and the phones started ringing and the emails shot
through cyber space with orders to get back to it, but

the sleepers slept on, hands slack at their sides, fore
heads smooth as water, every rank and file soldier

having closed his eyes and ears to the petulant howls
of the leaders of the free and not so free world, yes

even the hot shot pilots in their high tech jets, even
the gunners inside their explosive-resistant tanks

turned off the ignitions and voices yammering inside
their headsets. Slumped forward, cheeks pressed against

control panels, they slept like newborns for three more
days and nights, and then it happened--all the soldiers

on earth rolled in unison onto their backs like a flock
of starlings changed direction mid flight then dropping

as one onto bare winter trees, the branches now trembling
with leaves that only moments before did not exist.

Patricia Young