They came for the ones who floated in on streamers.
I did not care, they weren’t relatives or anything.
Then the soldiers came for the polka dotted ashtinglers.
I was never fond of them, so I ignored their screams.
When they came to take away the marshmonitors, I almost stepped in.
But they had guns and bayonets, and they were brutal.
When you are living in a dictatorship, you learn there is no freedom of speech.
I kept quiet.
They took my favorite neighbors, the Ashwanders on Tuesday night.
I heard Mr. A screaming for the rest of us to help him.
I thought if I kept my mouth shut, I would be safe.
I was wrong.
Tread not on me, brother!
To live is to expand.
Deterrence! Slay the Other!
Cold core countermand!
Boots a-click-clack, cobblestone.
Midnight raid and how!
Help the boy to hold his own!
Sacred, O my cow!
Written in the ancient s blood?
Time to cause a flood!
Rill and river, ricin, rud!
Break, fade, flash, firewood!
Bats before the bayonets?
Batons too can kill.
Settle in before she sets?
Providence, thy will.
Wild as any modern force?
Stranger than the sea?
Shift, O river, from thy course?
Not the likes of me!
Covert action! Civilize!
Cut them down to size!
Aim for whites of foemen eyes!
Dare to criticize?
Thunder, roll o'er city street!
Alarums to ring!
Riot team, best ye complete!
Jerk them on the string!
Silent aftermath, thy path.
Kingdom, how ye grew.
Pour out poison on the math!
Hope, need talking to...
The night sings outside
or what's left of it as the sun
stretches and yawns, hits snooze,
it's blue out. My eyes burn and
no one has spoken in hours.
But the quiet is punctuated
by periods of pointed silence, like
bayonets on the end of a rifle.
Means to an end.
Queen Bess's Uniform
We didn’t want the frostbite
We didn’t want the burns
We didn’t want to leave our homes
And families far astern.
We didn’t like the future
As we grimly sailed away
But we wore Queen Bess’s Uniform
And did it anyway.
We didn’t want the battle
Or the bayonets at night
We didn’t want to lose our lives
In such a distant fight
We didn’t want the air raids
Every moment of the day.
But we wore Queen Bess’s Uniform
And did it anyway.
We didn’t want a medal
Or parades in front of crowds
We didn’t go there
Just because we wanted to look proud.
If we’d known then what we know now
We might have stayed away
But we wore Queen Bess’s Uniform
And did it anyway.
supposing this mined ground beneath a sky of warheads
and a time of damaged armor that try to evade the point of bayonets
when the planet will be called blood
and seeing that harmony soon gets sick
and walks towards destruction,
strange you not accept that the blades gradually spread the decline
because that's how it is
there's nothing new
it's like a simple and logical game of win and lose
and now it's our turn my love.
A troop matching,
climbing the cliffs ready in arms,
Guns in gaunt and bayonets fixed.
armoured tanks in rows.
Arrows and terrors like darts,
enraged for the kill.
is this a war?
Yes,
Life a battlefield,
from cradle to the grave a warfare sealed.
to resign to fate, without a fight?
Never,
with tremendous Cheer,
at once to arm.
The sword and the spirit in continuous combat,
only the quickened can see,
through lenses once dead,
now revived.
Waiting on the line cos there’s nothing else left to do.
Waiting for the time when we share the ground with you.
Words, meanings, thoughts are blind but our bayonets are sharp and are magazines are full.
Waiting on the line - let’s see what we can do.
Childhood memories flood the mind where life was warm and blue.
Laughter, friendships and joy were the days that we did find and strangely I think of the stranger of you.
Waiting on the line, huh… for certain childhoods through.
When you’re in that sight of mine the bullets will follow through.
I look into your eyes and see that there was nothing wrong with you.
Quiet and cold where once we’re smiles and now this is what’s left of you.
Standing over the line trying to understand why mankind is the kind of fools.
Tears fill my eyes; I knew I had to die or I had to kill you.
Where once the mighty timid
Flanders soldier shook
Bathed in foriegn mud underfoot
All but one and two a man
Hard fought and pressed with bayonets clenched in hand abreast
expedient beating pumping chest
Side by side shoulder deep
To breach to cross go over top
To run and face a hail of rapid bullets
And fall beside my brethren brother's
called selflessly to arms
For to return name unknown
With all and but medal to hang
and place my life and times upon
Heroic not in death and historic
battles rolled out come
rememberance day for poppy
sales
But rather in the blood of gallant
resplendent regimental fellow
soldiers saved
Who regail the the tales and
uphold the memories and names
of those solent brave
To whom they owe their own
salvation and lives to this day to
To them we say
We kneel
We bow
We must
We shall salute
Lest we forget
Unless forget we lest
The debt of gratitude yet still not paid
Is the price of peace
Is death and war
If only you were me,
Would you beleaguer me then too?
Your words they pierce through like bayonets!
You do not discern the imperium of your words,
And I would never pray for you,
To be in my shoes.
My flaws they are naked,
Open like a lunette,
Through which I can peer through,
Seeing and believing all is true,
Like broken shards they hurt me;
You don't have to tell me too.
If only I were you,
I wouldn't let you be,
What you have put me through,
I would cherish thee,
For then I'd be happy too,
It would have been a blessing true.
7/11/20
JUDGED BY A JURY OF YOUR PEERS CONTEST
Sponsored by: Mark Koplin
C Centuries of fighting and vain inglorious trauma A
E Enemies for no reason other than blind terror R
A Agony fueled by apocalypse in ultimate spasm M
S Surrender in shelled remains or else you must die I
E Entrails exposed for eternity on fierce bayonets S
F Fighter planes nerve gas death war crimes for what T
I Indiscriminate suffering bones strewn like confetti I
R Ravenous greed delivered by swords rather phallic C
E Earth will swallow all warriors and then we are free E
26th May 2020
earlier
darkness casts gray beds over the city
the sight narrows his field
and gather on small objects inlaid by time
of tears and tears
I undo their appearance
look inside
finding the first gesture
who brought them to my house
love affair
flickering
making its way through the bayonets of the day
wishes to bring along
then
I withdraw easily
I leave my hands inside of them
I close the memory
like a surgeon
he gloves his gloves
at the end of an intervention
thinking of him
I wonder if my gesture
left everything as it was
or if
I changed
forever
something that was and which I do not know
if it still is
as the begining
With magnetic fascination
akin to domestication
I connect with Ms. Rabbit’s dawn.
Four babies she’s laid in my lawn.
Provoked by supernal emotion
stirred by a sense of procreation
I cancel lawn fertilizer.
Grass cutter? I will advise her.
Unparalleled admiration
drives my kids to affirmation.
They promise to protect new pets
no bikes, baseballs or bayonets.
Deeply compelled, preservation
builds a hutch in exaltation.
Field glasses from my window pane
track nature’s risks: sun, wind and rain.
July 6, 2019
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
for contest FINETUNE THIS, A COLLABORATION sponsored by Line Gauthier
AFFINITY WITH NATURE
by Line Gauthier
Magnetic fascination
Kin to emancipation
A connection internal
Stirs emotions supernal
Nature is unparalleled
Provokes intoxication
As we feel deeply compelled
To exalt admiration
Since the first bomb blast in my town,
I began talking to winds in strange languages.
Since bayonets had been replaced by rapist-soldiers,
I started building tin-nests on tall branches.
Since bullets became drunk with madness of
Trigger happy men in uniform, I have exiled
My death to another place where love only
Does the killing, where I could die sweetly,
With no feelings of hatred or revenge.
And to bring me back to the land of hypocrites,
Mothers denuded themselves in the market-place,
In broad daylight, and a sister of mine fasted for years,
Only to be discarded as a torn flag after electoral mandates.
Since my kid brother disappeared, without reasons
Or questions,
I keep looking at mirrors, searching for his face which Blurred away in cliched identity cards of a nation,
Where my vers libre floats in void spaces,
Like a stringless kite.
History is our future,
Because history is our past,
The longer we ignore our history,
The longer our misery will last.
History quickly fades form memories,
And we repeat our bad deeds,
We charge blindly down old roads,
To find disaster where our actions leads.
But in arrogance we march on,
Into fixed bayonets,
On battlefields of dried blood,
Over our ghosts that time forgets.
Even if God lets us live forever,
With time all memories are shades of grays,
We would still fail to recall,
Our failures on those fateful days.
The general has ordered us to charge again,
We must take that hill to win.
I ordered the men back on their feet,
Charge that hill, there will be no retreat.
Many soldiers lie dead by our side,
Into Blue Belly fire nowhere to hide.
This is the third charge up this hill,
We must reach the Blues we have to kill.
Cannon ball, grape shot and musket ball,
Caused many a young boy to wither and fall.
Flags fly, horses cry and bugles blow,
As over the wall into the breach we go.
Rifle butts, bayonets and sabers we face,
Gray die with Blue with no disgrace.
Routed those Blue Belly they’ve run away,
Pickett’s 1st. Virginia has taken the day.
Southern mothers and northern wailed and cried,
As their precious sons fell and died.
Because powerful men wish to own a slave,
In this land of the free and the home of the brave.
Young men with bright clear eyes,
Honor bound shout battle cries.
Has their sacrifice made any sense?
Time will tell it made no difference.
2019 Poetry Marathon Mile 20 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Mark Toney
2/21/19
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