Custer’s Last Stand

by Russell Streur

It rains in Vietnam

It rains in Iraq

It rains in Afghanistan

And election year 1876

George Armstrong Custer calculated

A couple hundred dead Sioux on the Plains

Would be about enough

For a four year lease

On the White House

And so with

Red white and blue

Guidon

With crossed swords flying

And American bugle

Blowing

Splashed a fine June morning

With his 7th cavalry and his wolverines

Across the Little Big Horn

Where a couple thousand Sioux on the other side

Voted with their arrows through his balls

Whereupon George

Earned his name of Yellow Hair

By putting a bullet through his brain

Leaving his troops and dogs to die

One by one

Eyes torn out

Noses cut off

Gutted

Fingers torn off

Penises sliced off

Feet severed

And other hanging chads

Of a body count

Tough to sum

Including the heart

Of his brother Tom

Which

Rain in the Face

Cut out

Had a taste

Spit out

And threw away.

“Sheep,” said Rain,

“The soldiers went down

Like sheep.”