Move on now.

Move on now.

Stand to attention

Button your lip

What is the point

Of detention as a deterrent

When it is safer

Than a night with my old man

Why was I written

Out of history

Was my name

Taken from the register

For the crime

Of being an illiterate

Footnote

Standing in a corner

With my pants pulled down

Whipped across the backside

As the class looked on

Knuckles sharply rapped

For writing

With the wrong hand

Wore a dunces cap

Could never spell a word

Or ever even heard

Of dyslexia

Lived on jam and bread

But never wished

That I was dead

Or understood

The meaning of anorexia

Stood in line

When the bugle called

Went to war

Because they needed me

Became a private

Which was a misnomer

As everything we were

Was opened up

For inspection

Even an erection

Nothing is ever hidden

From the military

But the truth

Of what it costs

To survive

When there is no one

Left alive

Did you see me

When the last man fell

I was in the foxhole

As the mist came down

Nobody can see

What death is meant to be

But the dead

And we are all of us

Counted equal

In the end.