The Vukovar Club

The Vukovar Club

Din of muttered discourse behind closed oak doors
Warm, smoke-fogged halls with high, baroque-plastered ceilings
One sad-eyed man giving orders, signing permissions, stopping the
buck
Whilst all around, others, some boys of fighting age
Examine navels and lament the loss of their homes, their luck
At the joining of the Wolf-river to the blood-drenched
Banks of the ageless, deep blue, mighty Danube.

Guarded voices in offices, clinking of cups on saucers,
Clackety-clack of secretaries' keyboards, creaking, pointless
faxes
People coming, people going, shifty men with haunting eyes
Distraught wives, brandishing children, rumours of husband lost, last
seen
In blackened cellar on Trpinska road, shelled to shingle by Charley's
guns
Desperate for news, for impartation of knowledge from so and bloody
so
She'll find out soon, this year or the next, when the knock on the
door
Of her refugee hostel room never comes. Then she'll know.

Hunched figures, endlessly waiting, waiting, waiting
News that just won't come, the inevitable. No doubt if, only
when.
Cigarette after cheap, stinking cigarette
Smoking her way to joining her loved one
Soon be wearing black. Forty anyway, so she's about due.
Maps on walls, pins in maps, hopes on pins, pins in hearts.
Coffee and more coffee, progress meetings, crisis talks, planning
sessions
Arms waved in overemotional bluster. But nothing changes.

Down wide, marble stairway, beautiful, faded Austro glory
Through dim basement corridor, past rooms, beds, boxes
Into small room, conference table, chairs, more coffee,
cigarettes
Little Marko comes, huffing and puffing, boxes and boxes
No hand lifts a finger to help him. Must he fight his war alone?
Bundles of clothing, tied up with cheap string
Musty, damp legacy of Honneker's defunct German legions
Green, phallic helmets, pine needle, drab olive, brown leather
belts
Cold buckles, pouches, harnesses and straps, boots and
accoutrements;
"I wanna gun!" Gloves and underwear. "You'll get one, son."

Blue shivers of anticipation, two coffin-like pine boxes
Eyes bulge as clumsy hands grasp in adolescent eagerness
As a breast first cupped, as a first stroking of cool thigh
What's this? What's this? Museum pieces in maker's grease?
Bolts and ten shot mags 'gainst massed assault and armoured
might?
With stuff like this we won't be worth a shite.
So what do you want? What'd you expect?
They keep the best for them that needs it, the VP's, logistics
And other base borne scum that hang back from flinging death
And random amputation in heated dens, vacant tarts for company
And leave half-headed youths like you and me to do man's work.

Furious orgy of rubbing, wiping, picking at and polishing
Soon all is ready, or not. What sad little bundles are we!
Soldiers? Huh. Fodder for the Migs and a mother's misery.
All tooled up and ready to go, sends the fight out of everyone
It's for real now, there's no going back (some will try later)
Only little Marko remains brave. But he has Mistress Rakija as his
ally.

Fumbling, inarticulate scramble into ubiquitous grey minibus
Another day at the Vukovar Club, Ban Jela&;#269;i&;#263;
Square
Nothing accomplished, six boys off to their deaths,
Another four smuggled rifles gone missing, somewhere
Between here and the front. And all waiting, waiting, waiting
For the news they all know will come but don't want to hear
Meetings, coffee, cigarettes- waiting patiently for the end.