Long Bayonet Poems

Once wars were fought with sticks and stones
to flog the flesh and batter bones
and conquer lands, defending thrones -
though gods provoke, not one atones. 

The multitude (by hordes beset
with battle-ax or bayonet)
braved blades, dyed red...

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What is freedom?
The brief period of anarchy between the last tyranny and the next?
Are we free if we cannot see the cage?
Or feel the chains?
What if our masters lengthen our leashes?
Only to tighten their hold...

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I'm willing to bet you've never accepted the idea that pain can be enjoyed. Perhaps you've mildly entertained the notion, but never truly grasped it's fundamentals.  Well my dear reader,  we have much to discuss. ...

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Who would milk the Tigress
				
                				    wears no armour    gasmask
				pail within squat thighs
					nor bloodless...

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TRENCH  CURSE 1918
BY
JOHN M. ARRIBAS

	
Patriotic songs give us reason to cheer
Except when “ over there” becomes over here
Mounting casualties are easy to explain
Men on foot crossing open terrain
Synchronized whistles signal the attack
Rise out of...

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For Within Thine Eyes, I See Love's Eternal Gaze, 
- a collaboration with Susan Ashley
 
How shall I, let your kind and most tender heart go
with its immense depths, sweet kisses, resplendent glow.
I could do...

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I WAS PURSUING A CAREER IN  DENTAL AND ORAL SURGERY
NEVER THOUGHT  THE WAR WOULD LEAVE A FATAL MARK ON ME
THE  SECOND YEAR OF STUDY CONSISTED OF FIELD REVIEWS
OF THE DENTAL CONDITIONS OF...

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Conquering Normans in siege they lay
waste to all England
to pillage and slay.

William the Conqueror rode overland
with nobles and ladies
of high ranking band.

Surveying all territories with equal measure
His decision unanimous,
and at his leisure

Decided on Londinium, the...

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Khatia Buniatishvili's Tour de Force of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto N° 1 in B-flat minor on Zubin Mehta's 80th Birthday*

… the caged-beast terrified defying the donderbus blasts vollies of muskets and cannons heralding the charge cavernous...

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Against communist Vietnam a war was waged 
For almost twenty years fierce fighting raged 
The French came first then the U. S. arrived
Communism had grown and it had thrived.

Most American soldiers served with distinction
Carrying out...

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The Australian Light Horse had rode all night
And the troopers were all spoiling for a fight
For they remembered mates lose on the fatal shore
When the Turks defeated the Gallipoli Invasion flaw

But Chauvel wanted to wait...

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4/25/22

Started before last October
Going beyond Passover
Pettiness and greed always gave off a bad odor

I don't know if I'll ever have closure
Rarely ever am I that sober
For the longest time, it's been just me and Rover

She...

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How shall I, let your kind and most tender heart go
with its immense depths, sweet kisses, resplendent glow.
I could do no such, no more than I walk away
sweetheart, I love you too much, this truth...

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When Pigs Fly
by Michael R. Burch

On the Trail of Tears,
my Cherokee brothers,
why hang your heads?
Why shame your mothers?
Laugh wildly instead!
We will soon be dead.

When we lie in our graves,
let the white-eyes take
the woodlands we loved
for...

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...Duncan’s unit, the 42nd,
was placed in the center of the mass,
the French would crumble quick, he reckoned,
when the lines started marching at last,
not knowing that no orders had come,
yet on the left came the sounds...

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(for those in Kwangju: May 18, 1980)*
after Dante

Taking this peach within the mouth, the tongue 
hovers around its sunset skin like a lover
and its Sappho sweet bite is heaven. A song

of honeysuckled rivers is like...

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...And though the rifles were slower to load,
the Overmountain Men made use of trees,
concealing themselves from counterfire
in places that the British couldn’t see.

With countless snipers popping out to shoot,
all the loyalists there atop the hill
knew...

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The British had stumbled
in Boston the year last,
but came again for vengeance bold
to bleed freedom, damage untold,
with fire and with blast.
To New York their ships sailed
thirty thousand men strong,
and Washington, on islands spread,
awaited their coming...

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COLD FACTS
Sip from the flask of your greed
The poison you drink is what you need
down inside internally you bleed
See these words where they lead

I am familiar with wounds and pain
Opened and oozing again and again
The...

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Your country needs you!

Roll up roll up! we’re going to war,
It’s a noble cause, to be fighting for,
If your a boy, we’ll make you a man,
No rules apply, do anything you can. 

Bomb our enemies,...

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Brendan ain’t ‘Able’

The teacher preached that we are all ‘different but similar and 
                     ...

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In a green skirt wave to tables, in a yellow skirt wave to chairs, but in a white shirt sit in bookshelves humming away and swinging legs and arms to the beat transcribed by tomes,...

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love your art
love your heart
dear, dear friend
you do impart, I am so sorry
I missed you in adulthood
May your craft and legacy
Light (engulf and light up heaven)
Lance
Mcintosh
He who had heart
wapenda sanaa yako
wapende moyo wako
mpendwa, rafiki mpendwa
wewe...

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Suribachi

At the base of Suribachi
Within reach of the beach,
The mountain towers as I shrink
Into guts of hate,—malignant:
With a rifle and bayonet, and grenades
And murdering hands
To choke the existence
Out of living things.

They all looked the same...

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In Syria we fought the French in 1941...
Foreign Legion and the Vichy French an 8 week war was won...
After battle with the slaughter, many bodies where they lay...
Don checked them as he oughta , found...

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