The day after Memorial Day

Thomas Disch:

This has to be my favorite secret holiday,
and just to have said that much violates
sacred traditions, for what is celebrated
on War Guilt Tuesday (Kriegschuldentag
in German lands) are the acts we cannot speak of
committed under the oriflamme of All's Fair:
Hiroshima, Dresden, and jihads high and low.
The acts of torture our boys don't choose to
remember have their own darkling assizes
on War Guilt Tuesday as each veteran's personal
Banquo sits down beside him at breakfast
and devours a rasher of fried rapes.
As in the barracks they must affect
to make dumb jokes as though they were
talk-show hosts. But screw thyself
to the sticking point and how does the rest
of it go? Oh yes, you light it with a match.
Just imagine doing that to your own fiancée!
Suicide races are a traditional holiday pasttime
in the afternoon, and war games of all kinds.
In prisons and rehabs the blind are made
to fight with the blind using double-edged
razor blades embedded in baking potatoes.
At night everyone who isn't already wasted
watches slasher movies like Saw and Hostel.
Have you noticed how horror movies have been getting
so much better lately? There's a reason.
But for all the fun, you can bet everyone is glad
to return to their regular routines.