There was a time not long ago
When all seemed attainable and sure
Pure days that ran together without change
A many-colored canvas bright
With innocence of artless sun-filled thrall

There was a time not long ago
When snow-clogged streets became the playgrounds of our gods
Sun-struck streets that also split with August heat
Tar dug from cobbles wadded into bitter gum
And every hour sparkled with the marvel of it all

There was a time not long ago
Ground peach-pits round brown finger-grips
We rode the backs of trolleys
To watch our Giants and our Yanks stretch summer hits
And there were day-dreams in our post-game ball

There was a time not long ago
We picked the supper dandelions in Divello's fields
And fished the City-Island's flounder fens
Burned red for lack of sun-screen we could not afford
And prayed to soar beyond our brightening pall

There was a time not long ago
From the roof of an ancient tenement high on our hill
We see a smogless panoramic brilliance
The tallest buildings of the world
With love in our arms that fourteenth fall

When every hour sparkled with the marvel of it all

There was a time many years ago
When past became present
He thought he was broken beyond repair
Dreams an abhorrent reality
A tunneling of horrifying images
Middle sleep unable to shed tortured delirium
Phantasmal hallucinatory visions
Boiling his brain into a delusionary mash
Day after night a frightening fearsome purgatory

They calmed him with a shot and ink-blots
What did he see in this one?... That one?...
In the PTSD Weirdo Room they had him count backwards
One-Hundred… Ninety-Nine…Ninety-Eight…
When he woke up they made him take a cold shower
Then wrapped him naked-tight in a large rubber sheet
Laid him out on the freezing porch for a while
Before they brought him back to his rock-hard mattress
In the gloom of one of the four wards

Next to him the old guy from Auschwitz started up again
“Rachel…Rachel…Where are you Rachel?...
Shut the hell up you old bastard somebody yelled
They cooked her in the ovens you jerk someone else shouted
After she took the gas another chimed in
The big black male nurse came in with a flashlight
“Okay…Okay… That’s enough Mr Rosenberg”
And stuck him in the ass with a needle
Everybody shut up but he still could not sleep

They came for him again the next morning
The nurse took his blood pressure and temperature
Then gave him another shot
They rolled him into the Shock Room
Strapped him down onto the insulated metal table
Ankles knees waist elbows wrists secured real tight
Shoved in a mouth-piece so he wouldn’t bite his tongue off
Tucked his hair under the rubber cap and put the headset on
He woke up hours later with one hell of a greased headache

“Rachel…Rachel… Where are you Rachel”?...

The nuns waver in the shimmer an hour before the afternoon rain
Devils dance in the streets
Bunker oil has not been laid as yet to still them
Across the strait - The skies above the mountains of Samaar
Slowly blacken with jungle moisture on its way to join our own

In the shallows - The masts of sunken ships lance skyward to mark their graves
Some blown pillboxes rubbled on the beach
Mix with pristine sand to mark more graves
Occasionally a bloated corpse floats in to be degassed with a forty-five
If it is one of ours - or just left to be exploded by the sun

Sweat soaks us as we line up yet again in the merciless heat
Palm-shade not helping much as we await our turns
Outside the rounded metal hut
It was thrown up less than a week after the town had been secured
Tagalog notices distributed and the hiring of eager applicants begun

It’s been four months since the supreme generalissimo returned as promised
Splashing ashore more than once for army movie-cams to get it right
One of his first decrees - To build the pleasure domes
Staffed with his docs and medics who now short-arm us all
And also make sure the girls are clean

No blacks are seen in our protracted line
(It would be years before equality's affirmed)
Their own much smaller quonset near the strip is hidden in the bush
On the other side of town - It trembles slightly adding to the thrill
As the Billies and the 38's roar off on useless runs

The nuns? - They come and go oblivious of our long queue
(Embarrassed men and boys)
For there's a nunnery across the way and the nuns of Santa Cruz
Silently they come and go in darkness and in light
To minister to their debilitated flock at a hastily-rebuilt hospital on Red Beach

After the hills are stabilized and danger's past - Junketing congressmen
The U.S.O and press appear - and the pleasure domes are closed
Infections soar - Rum is poisoned and the economy caves in
The huts are then given to the nuns who have them torn apart
To roof both hospital and nunnery with corrugated sheets

*Repost: The site of the poem is the town of Tacloban where
the recent devastation we all see on our TV screens has taken place…