5680. CAMP KILMER

CAMP KILMER

To a man they are standing straight at the

fenceposts along the way  -  this here was,

in 1956, a camp where they took the refugees

in, from the Hungarian Revolution. There

are still a few signs around, trying to tell

the story, but no one cares; no one (actually)

even gives a shit to wallow in that stuff  -  today's

world bleeds stupidity on its own. They are all

mostly kids anyway, or kid-like. Bolstered to 

phones like knuckles on a hand, gaggling and 

gagging the laughter gone ga-ga over nothing

at all. Yes, right here too  -  where  people once 

wailed in a sorrow of displacement and hurt, 

where familes were sundered, or re-united, either 

way. The camp turned its face to this tenderness

scenery. Now, some sixty years later  -  though it

might as well be five hundred  -  every docile face

is on the make. The old airport is plowed over and

it's a shopping center now : bevies of bastards buying

their takes. Walking their fat through parking lot wastes.

I can still hear  -  in my own youthful memory  -  the

cries and the wails and the happiness too. People 

in love with another chance to live.