I felt a little dizzy at the grave.
And there he was, so frozen to the bones.
The snow was barely sweetening the place.
So silly to now have a conversation,
when over decades we had never managed it.
But what am I to do with one way barbs
the ones you cleverly implanted while I slept?
I'm sorry if you're freezing in that hole,
I'm not without compassion, as you know.
Though did not learn this trait from you or mother
but from the books I read, the ones you told me 'no'.
Ran out of words already, isn't that a joke!
Perhaps this comes from you forbidding me to speak.
During your lifetime when you thought you were
commanding general to the troops around you.
Don't kid yourself, you never really were.
I gotta go now, although I do wonder,
would you concern yourself about some frozen bones?
If it were me down in that lonely hole
and you were standing in my place saluting whom?

Herbert Nehrlich

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/frozen-general/