Poet's Platform Column | 30 Sept. 07 by Janet Nesler | The Scioto Voice | Wheelersburg, Ohio

Missing In memory of my father Paul LeBrum Missing in Action, the notice said, somewhere over the North Sea never to be found. One of America’s best never came home to be laid to rest. There were no sorrowful sounds of Taps being played, no crack of a twenty one-gun salute, the folding of the flag or the trembling hand of an old soldiers salute. All we have is a little black box with his Purple Heart that he earned for his part. A picture of him with wife and son, To remind us of the life he gave. So our freedom would live A memorial stands in our local park with his name engraved in stone to honor his loss. But he never came home to be laid to rest. Missing but not forgotten. Larry LeBrun McDermott, OH   In Mogadishu The dust swirls along with the flies The heat stifles and people die in Mogadishu All is pain, it never rains, The bodies smell, it is hell in Mogadishu Fear and Hate never abate It’s push and shove; there is no love in Mogadishu Speed the day, don’t let me stay All here suffer, God must start over in Mogadishu Charles Lloyd Turner                                       Olive Hill, KY     Slow to Learn Man’s inhumanity to man stalks like a Serengeti lion. The veneer of civilization is calico-thin... in danger of shredding in tatters, like a sheer curtain blowing from an open window. The delicate fabric holding civilization together is being torn and ripped asunder by the voracious jaws of hatred and greed. The chasm between the rich and the poor grows wider with each breath of the wind. Family bonds have gradually regressed like a calving glacial avalanche. Blinded by ego and power, politicians agree only to disagree. Religions often ignore the scriptural admonition: “Judge not—’lest ye be judged, Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Will we ever learn? Charles Clevenger New Boston, Ohio