Ft Leonard Wood Mo.1961
Combat Engineers
Miracle Man
10/18/2024
Most days we awoke feeling quite asinine,
choice wasn’t to get up or remain supine.
The bugle was telling us rise and shine,
fall in formation “cruits” and ditch the whine.
After a five mile hike you’ll be feeling fine,
with their way of thinking we wouldn’t align.
Our canteens contained water tasting like brine,
with spit shined boots each cleaned his carbine.
K.P. and cleaning grease traps is hard to define,
another duty intended to harass but was benign.
Just one lousy gig got us a barracks confine,
but finally after 9 weeks we were on cloud nine.
All this happened with purpose and by design,
to make men of boys that would toe the line.
A due date is the finish line,
a detail not to be ignored!
What do you call a starting line?
A place to leap from made of pine,
the impetus of a spring board,
far from the waters finish line.
The cover of a book design,
begins a quest to be explored,
as text flies from that starting line.
The crack of the starters carbine,
as athletes begin their sprint toward,
fame at the distant finish line.
That first note felt from the baseline,
while groovin' on the fretboard,
as beats move from the starting line.
Maybe it's the morning sunshine,
while the Earth spins ever westward.
To yet another finish line,
to realize it's the starting line.
~Johnnymac
Those BMX bikers were kicking up dust
But the blockade ahead meant they had to have trust
The little green guy with a face like a sprout
Would come up with something to help them all out
The soldiers in Jeep’s that were blocking the road
Studied their sergeant who grinned as he strode
His carbine was loaded and held firm and steady
Hey kids, you've run out of road... already
The kids saw that soon they’d have no road at all
For first there were Jeeps... then a twenty foot wall
Their wrinkled up friend better do something good
As each of them peddled as fast as they could
The soldiers could see that those bikes they weren't slowing
Those bikes were still coming... but wouldn't be going
Machine carbines raised at the oncoming children
No soldier was sure they’d be able to kill them
Faster and faster those pedals were spinning
The little green alien just sat there grinning
And then they soared over those Jeeps, that’s not all
Those kids all got splatted against that brick wall
*
[and then Mr Spielberg responded in person
I think I just might film a different version]
Young G’s sporting tattooed gunz, on rolling black streets,fishing without water, amphibians of the dark ghettos,with names like Ricochet Rob, because he once dreamt of shooting straight.Mumbles, who’s mom was a midnight walker. He was not named for that, butbecause he was hit in the head to much, as a tike and stays drunk, on liquid crack.Then there is Bboss, just because he says so and their ship goes wayback. Riding in circles, on the wavy vinyl streets.They roll up on their port, this side of an intersection, they cannot pass, for the other side its just to deepThey hop out of the grey primered lowrider and begin clubbing, off the hip.Clubing their wares, slingin caps, dumping on anything, that is hauling ass.The stray paint hits, an innocent ankle-biter, across the sea.The truth is black lives matter, unless you are a pirate, with a carbineand are colored blinded, by dead presidents.
4/30/2017
final dismount, final ride
pasture waits for dappled roan
girth mark of the lonely byways
lather from the battles flown
dew eyed weary, spinal backed
stumble step'd and nostril blown...
stirrup brass with bugle hung
faded strap and leather worn
bridle twisted, crackled spur
broken packboard, blanket torn
carbine scabbard, saddle sore
salt and stain wrung round the horn...
cosmoline and splintered stock
powder burned and pointed lead
flashpan crusted, blackened sight
ramrod tamped and barrel fed
faceless names etched in the action
thunder echoed, eardrums bled...
now the rider, less the man
mustered out a thousand suns
restless eye and palsied hand
scattered mind behind the gun
drumbeat sigh and breaking heart
no true glory grasped and won...
in the world
of the world
in joy's cascade as much as grief
season turns
while seasons end
wind blows down the autumn leaf.
(This poem was wrote as a challenge, a tribute to Laurel and Hardy, so this was taken from songs).
On a mountain in Virginia, Stands a lonesome pine
Just below the cabin, home of a little girl of mine,
Having the time of our lives
Far from our girlfriends and wives.
Since January, April, June or July
Snowtime, pay no time to stay,
We're going to see, we're going to see
We're going to see my home in Dixie.
I knew I'd found my paradise
Honolulu baby, where did you get those eyes?
I'm in love with you
With your eyes so blue.
You do the tango jiggle
With a Texas Tommy wiggle,
Fast his hands, his carbine hold,
It is his best friend of old.
When clouds are grey, when skies are blue,
Come rain or shine I'm happy too,
You are the ideal of my dreams,
I've loved you forever it seems.
You toldme things you never meant,
And made me think them too,
Well here's another nice mess
You've gotten me into.
I was planning on going to Azania to die like you
No one would transport me
Away from the rhetoric, and Fidel left before
I knew. So I wrote on walls
Endless missives of declarations for freedom.
I made words into missiles
But saw no gore, nor body bags, and I wept.
If mine was only a mask I would be another them
The drums heart throbbing would tell me nothing
Except where to board the ship and work my fare
Until I stood in cordite fumes and carbine glare.
I say it securely, but I am not sure
How much of me is recoverable from the past
And how much of you was lost
There are so many broken things in a broken history
So many false images in the cobweb of lies
If thinking becomes a chain
Unless I think like God again.
What would you say Zimbabwe now, this global mirror
In which we must adjust the self against the self?
What would call a man that keeps no vow
So that he may keep a vow?
Is not all love a compulsive obsession
When you believe in its truth?
I am hanging mask on wall tonight, I am going out
To look up at stars and name them all after you.
Towering, organic orifice;
Spiring, glistening steeple
Wholesome, organic form;
Brokered, burnished symbol
Environmentally-conditioned
organism; Artificially-renovated
copse
Bland, earthy edifice; Bright,
glowing orb
Dull, lifeless timber; Vibrant,
veiled oracle
Shielded, sheltered ember;
Shiny, showcased beacon
Soaring, sylvan sentinel;
Stunted, cropped cinder
Cherished, nourished fodder;
Chosen, sanctified shroud
Pristine, woody carbine;
Refinished, domesticated
chalice