war stories The Poet had an idea. He would like to watch a war happening. The Government turned him down. "The last thing we need is Poets on the battlefield." The Poet kept up the pressure, and because he was well-known and claimed falsely to have influence on the young, and because he threatened to support the opposition party, the Government finally changed its mind and transported him in a helicopter to the front. "Maybe he'll get himself killed in the crossfire and be a big hero," they snickered knowingly. The Poet saw young men subjected to the violence of metal objects traveling at high speed, which tended to disturb the smooth functioning of their anatomy and, in extreme cases, detach forever spirit and corpse. The Poet wrote about young princes who cherished the hunt, foxes too clever to be caught, sadistic fathers who punished their sons for staying out too late on the chase. One day the Poet asked the helicopter to descend so he could get a close look at the face of a soldier who was dying. He was looking for inspiration for a sonnet. The helicopter flew into the side of a hill and burst into flame. The Poet, covered in burning gasoline, made sounds that, for him, were entirely new. His brain exploded in his skull like an overheated soda can. As a result, his War Stories were unpublished in his lifetime.
	location: Lisbon date: Spring 1992 average rating: 8.00 (1 vote) your rating (0-10):