Poetry with a touch of truth

Swift&silent

Active member
The sheepdogs

Most humans are truly like sheep
Wanting nothing more than peace to keep
To graze, grow fat and raise their young
Sweet taste of clover on the tongue
Their lives serene upon life's farm
They sense no threat nor fear no harm
On vendant meadows, they forage free
With naught to fear, with naught to flee
They pay their sheepdogs little heed
For there is no threat; there is no need

To the flock sheepdogs are mysteries
Roaming watchful round the peripheries
These fang-toothed creatures bark, they roar
With the fetid reek of the carnivore
Too like the wolf of the legends told
To be amongst their docile fold
Who needs sheepdogs? What good are they?
They have no use not in this day
Lock them away, keep them from sight
There is no need for their fierce might

But sudden in their midst a beast
has come to kill come to feast
The wolves attack: they give no warning
They slash and kill with frenzied glee
Their passive helpless enemy

Who had no clue the wolves were there
Far roaming from their eastern lair
Then from the carnage from the rout
Comes the cry, "Turn the sheepdogs out!"

Thus in their nature but, too, their plight
To keep their dogs on leashes tight
And live a life of illusive bliss
Hearing not the beast, his growl, his hiss
Until he has then by the throat
They pay no heed: they take no note
Not until he strikes then at their core
Will they unleash the Dogs of War
Only having felt the wolfpack's wrath
Do they loose the sheepdogs on its path.

And the wolves will learn What we have shown before
We love out sheep, We dogs of war



Russ Vaughn
2nd battalion 327th parachute inf reg
101st airborne Division RVN
1965-66
 
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