We Could be Heroes

I was looking through one of my notebooks and found this poem I wrote back in my senior year. I haven't written in a while but just started up again. Someone special reminded me what it felt like to write. Mind you I wrote this before joining the military I just wanted to write a ballad like Bob Dylan and I was reminded of David Bowie's song "We Can be Heroes" but always thought that the song was awesome but the name did not fit with the rest of the lyric. Just wanted to tell a story thats all. Tell me what you think -

We Could be Heroes...
that’s why I put my body near the ground for cover
Holding my field arm and grenades
Dylan, Bowie and I are on sides of each other
Each knowing we are afraid
and so I look to my brother
His sweat telling me we’re in a cage
I want to go back…to my mother
but the land mines have been laid

The option being forward
There was only one way
We could be heroes
Just for one day

Dirt comes in my eye
Bullets hit ground, pushing dirt out at me
I say “We’re G.I.s
We’re infrantry”
Bowie says “No hero ideas guy
I joined for help towards a degree”
Dylan says “We’re gonna die
-tryin’ to make this damn dirt free”
“We signed our names
‘tis set in stone
We knew we might go to our graves
not our homes”
Bowie: “This is no war game
-kid- those bullets got tone
We’re not gonna die on your thirst for fame
So you’re on your own”

“I want no fame
That’s why I say
We could be heroes
Just for one day”

Dylan says how he’s from a small town
How there’s only one traffic light
Atleast that’s what I hear between machine gun rounds
And how he wishes he’d be walkin’ mainstreet tonight
We will lay here forever shielded by the ground
That is my largest fright

Back home everyone was surprised I put my name down
I’m last to want to fight

Bowie took position to aim
Dylan looked at me in self-disgrace
He started running until the bullet came
-puncturing him above the waist
Falling to the ground, half slain
Returning to me in a vital pace
Asking “Why must I die on this grain?”
Eye to eye, he pukes his blood on my face

As I look there
Where Dylan lay
We could be heroes
Just for one day

I say to Bowie “I know I’m early in years
But we got nothing else left
Let us forget our fears
And show those bastards our crest”
Clutching his shirt “We’re here
-there’s no way out of this mess
You’re my superior but get your gear
We’re overtaking our enemies nest!”

Bowie says “My options are weighed
As it is yours, this is my deathbed
Since my decision is made
I’ll take us both away from this dread”
With this he takes one of my two grenades
Pulls the pin, puts it in the mouth of his head
I’m rolling away afraid
As Bowie turns foreign soil American red

Hearing no sound, I was okay
With more blood on my skin
A grenade takes a man’s head away
The helmet worn keeps the explosion within
This outcome may be what may
‘Forgive me for I am about to sin’
but we can be heroes just for one day
of this last grenade I be pullin’ my pin
I be a stormin’ in