IF THEY HAD ONLY LET GEORGE DO IT

by Earl J. Wilcox

"It doesn't require any particular bravery to stand on the floor of the Senate and urge our boys in Vietnam to fight harder, and if this war mushrooms into a major conflict and a hundred thousand young Americans are killed, it won't be U. S. Senators who die. It will be American soldiers who are too young to qualify for the senate."
-- George McGovern

Things might have been different:
More of the hungry
      would have been fed.
More of the naked
      would have been clothed.
More who suffer pain
      and neglect by others
would have known peace and
     some happy times.
George tried his damnedest
     during his lifetime
To get everyone on the same page.

Alas, that book was never read by many,
though George wrote the manuscript over
and over until he died.


Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to The New Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.