Not As Simple As It Seemed

We were soldiers. Soldiers don't ask why.
We scorned soft comforts, home and fickle fame.
“Ours not to wonder, ours to do and die.”
Our souls were bright with patriotic flame.
We shouted oaths and shook our shining lance;
Pursued the foe without a backward glance.
A vision of war glory filled our heads,
Our names shining among the sacred dead.
And each of us of love and honor dreamed.
We wrote our names in stolen blood instead.
The truth was not as simple as it seemed.

On wealth we cast a hungry, dazzled eye.
As others climbed to wealth, we did the same.
Not for us low plebs to reach so high;
We were not welcome at their private game.
Fortune's bold young striplings took their chance.
Were we victims of ourselves, or circumstance?
The high ghouls on our childish dreamwork fed.
Our energies, our youthful summers sped.
We worked, and planned and prayed, and hoped, and schemed.
Crushed by the truth, our high ambitions fled.
The truth was not as simple as it seemed.

A teacher showed us how to prophesy.
To weigh and judge each philosophic claim
That he was brilliant, no one could deny.
He gave us truths the world could ne'er defame.
Light on his feet through Wisdom's solemn dance,
His eloquence kept us in heady trance.
“A leader in his field,” the papers said.
Turned out a fallow field was what he led.
Though he was by his colleagues well esteemed,
He put a bullet in his well-schooled head.
The truth was not as simple as it seemed.

We sought the limelight, and the public eye.
Whatever was required, that we became,
To write our names across a glowing sky.
We danced before the altar without shame.
Through notice we could make our names advance,
Or so we hoped, and struck our practiced stance.
We sought to be “legit.” We claimed our “cred.”
To be a “no one” was our only dread.
Though fame glimmered, and hopes of glory gleamed,
Turns out the world just wasn't interested.
The truth was not as simple as it seemed.

With high-held hearts we denounced every lie.
The rights of all we'd shelter and proclaim.
“Justice be done!” was our brave battle cry.
We reaped our harvest when the battle came;
Defeat, despair, neglect, or plain mischance,
And only by the powers' sufferance.
“Justice!” we cried – but for ourselves we pled.
We shed tears freely, but the others bled.
Though silent, through the night my conscience screamed,
A heartworm incompletely elided.
The truth was not as simple as it seemed.

O nobly born, your souls have led you hence,
To Virgil's wood, still haunted, dark and dense.
To face what we, the damned inherited.
Grace was what our lost souls coveted.
Though we expected we would be redeemed,
Our names were changed when the great book was read.
The truth was not as simple as it seemed.