Long Cohorts Poems
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You can't imagine what its like to march on a sacred city,
to plunder and pulverize a Peoples' promise to Deity,
demolishing centuries of lavish labor, wasting offspring of ancient heredity,
destroying flesh, scriptures and stone with a savage Roman military synergy,
a discipline determined in it's destruction of dissention, inspired by ancestral victory,
politics was not our purview, methodical punishment was our specialty,
We were War's royalty, we were Legio XV Apollonaris,
monsters of Mars, messengers of Apollo, the juggernaut of Jupiter,
along with 11 other Legions led by General Titus, 60, 000 cuts of glory we stood,
for 3 and a half years we fought through Jewish guerilla ambush
asymetrical urban warfare welting our progress like a pirate pestilence
district after district, hell spell after hell spell we bled with chilled maneuver,
the Zealots were pyromaniacs, burnt sacraficers, their zeal and our bodies zesty wood,
in the Kidron Valley they flooded the streets " knee high " with oiled water
as the Cohorts waded through the lanes leery, a torch was tossed, flames rose in rush
240 men perished like spazing stars trapped in a box, our grief agape with a horrified crush,
as reprimand, Titus made the Legate sit in a tent with his chopped off ring finger
smoldering like hot sand in the hand of a marooned man aware of error in his plan,
the insurgents had men we called Fox Tails, desperate demons who knew how Hell began,
as a skirmish succumbed to our skill and number they would run into apartments,
dragging the fury of our blades into rooms of Hades revenge, these were fire entrapments,
the buildings would blaze like windowed volcanos, screams salting us with panic linger,
It was not uncommon to discover a missing Brother Legionary
castrated, and decapitated with a headedless eagle carved upon his chest,
don't speak to me about morals and mercy for I have seen and dealt the damage of rude death
hate becomes your Father, vengence your Mother, aggravated murder your cause
when everything you revere and fear merge to make a leviathen of life,
the " Chosen People " of God became the chosen target of annihilation,
Mount Moriah, mansion of Yahweh the Pariah would become capital of Divine crucifixion,
J.A.B.
This poem has been entered into the Roman Legion Contest
to honor Ancient Rome and the Poet who sponsored this historical subject.
From Gabbatha, before the judgment seat,
a winding, tortured road: Golgatha's end.
His flesh in shreds, he staggers on His feet,
rough timbers grate excoriated skin.
The lines from Jesse's root are drawn by thorns,
the precious blood, in rivulets, runs dark.
To slaughter sent, the lamb of seven horns,
unblemished ere disfigured by their marks.
Exchanging doubt for will on Olivet,
and then to be betrayed by Judas' kiss;
just thirty pieces bought that blood and sweat.
Sweet Jesus, has it truly come to this?
'Fore Pontius Pilate, seat of Roman power,
civility, barbaric and uncouth,
the lord of a dominion cruel and dour
is juxtaposed 'gainst witness to the Truth.
The keepers of the Torah did not know,
or knowing, chose to look the other way.
Prophetic much disrupts the status quo;
Messiah sacrificed so they might stay.
A carpenter, he learned to dress the wood,
a trade ’twas handed down with father's love.
Ironic then to fashion heaven's door,
with arms outstretched, give access to above.
The lots and insults cast further disgraced
this giver of new wine and broken bread;
above his crown of thorns, a sign was placed
with words that bore the truth of what he said.
The first line read, "Jesus of Nazareth."
The second signified Judean king,
a title earning chief of priest's rebuff.
His own received him not, "He's no such thing."
And so on center stage, the bitter cup,
with cohorts stealing parts to left and right.
The serpent bronze is high and lifted up,
and ushers in humanity's dark night.
Amidst it all, a faith ’twas Roman-cast;
observing, the centurion was awed
in witnessing how Christ gave up his last,
"This Jesus truly was the Son of God!"
The earth was rent, the inner veil was torn
as though creation's pain sought some relief.
The crowd, returning home, beat breasts and mourned;
the women, at a distance, watched in grief.
An upright man who did not give consent,
a certain Joseph took his body down,
wrapped Him in strips before the day was spent,
and thus was Jesus buried in the ground.
(from the passion narratives of the gospels)
Fifth Place Winner
for the A BRIAN STRAND PREMIERE CHOICE Poetry Contest
sponsored by Brian Strand
written 04/11/2022
Ignatius inspected his cohort
The unknown one and his men
He needed the best to fight for him
He needed the best to fight for them
Iduma stood tall, with a beard of fiery red
Didn’t like Ignatius, he wanted his job instead
Now was the time, he could prove his worth
He was born to be a leader; he knew it from birth
Ianus the two-faced one, wasn’t sure whose side to take
He watched Ignatius and Iduma, he waited for his break
The cohorts were ordered to drink, and sup from the pool
Then Ignatius would pick his men, he was nobody’s fool
To take Britannia from Caesar, that was Ignatius’ game
And then he wouldn’t be unknown, everyone will know his name
The ones that sipped from the pool, while keeping watch around
They were the cohorts Ignatius used, his cohorts he had found
Caesar when he slept, would be in his tent set by the river
Ignatius sent his men, to bring back the Caesar’s liver
Iduma heard the plan, his temper rose and boiled
He would not let Caesar die; it was Ignatius that would be broiled
Ianus watched them both, a side he needed to pick
He wanted to be on the winning one, he knew he must act quick
The cohorts crept into the camp; to take Caesar was their plan
Then Ignatius knew he would be leader, he would be their man
Ianus decided to foil the plan, and so he set a small trap
He told Caesar what was afoot, and then his thigh did slap
He hid in Caesars’ tent and waited for the cohorts
But it seemed to him that Idouma… must have read his thoughts
His two-faced trickery failed, at the conception of his plan
Iduma didn’t trust him, he was a two-faced man
Ianus of the two faces would pick sides when things were good
But he hadn’t counted on Idouma; it was something that he should
Ignatius failed to take Caesar, and will forever remain unknown
Londinium became a diocese, of the Roman throne
With Ianus dead and Ignatius too, that left only Iduma with his men
For Caesar to promote him, not of one cohort, but ten.
Ignatius . Loose translations in Latin …..Unknowning
Iduma… ……………………………. red
Ianus… …………………………… two faces.
Caesar……………………………………King
Cohorts…….. The Legion was split into 10 Cohorts. The Cohorts were divided into
Centuries. The First Cohort contained five centuries of 160 'crack troops.
All efforts tabled on Nigeria;
Experiencing a fortunate miscarriage,
Feasting Aso rock- a pizzeria
But never admit it is the cause of this age.
Upon the solid manifesto,
That touches all sectors:
Picturing California's Barstow,
To cajole mandates of the electors.
Finally, all promises are working...
Nigerians are glad to vote SAI BABA.
How beautiful things are shirking!
Yet, we never cease referencing YORUBA's BONOBO.
Now, pebbles tear apart the wall to a lowland.
No sands dare last all days.
Though, the wall can not withstand
The test of time come the apartness of clays.
The crevices in the wall:
Is an awaiting lost of hope;
One day, the wall will surely fall.
Just like acrobats won't last all days on tightrope.
The time is no longer right;
The poor and his rights are wrong,
For there's no one to stand by him.
Those beautiful hearts; pure and young
Have been battered and their loves' lights dim.
Buhari's reign is like what?
Revelation said it well in his whatnot
And if that be the truth,
Should we believe, lazy are all youths?
Why do we fear actions and love words?
If we never mind, our hens can fly like birds
But we keep living in reliving,
The leadership orbiting the Africa GIANT's sun outliving...
The societies expectations--
A reason millions are invested in educations.
When shall we be tired?
To relieve those supposed to have retired.
Just like the withered leaves bring
Blessings unto tree to renew its strength.
The odd flowers introduce the spring
And relinquished fortitude to breath.
The detached withered leaves
That have been laid to rest,
Can never regain life's airfoil
Than enrich the top soil.
What are meant for backups,
Ended up been the beautiful ups.
One thing unsure is the extent of our grieves,
All are mere satisfying best.
Of course, sun shall rise and shines bright on the green lushes,
Blessing nature with its radiant nutritional solar energy.
As the aiding glimmer blushes,
It shall promote unbelievable synergy.
But if nights tarry for long,
Mornings shall come with the healing birdsong...
Youths, light the nights;
Cohorts, best their rest.
You feed and live on lies and malice
Deception is the cloak you wear so elegantly
The crisp white robes, expensive suits or
The everyday clothes of the working class
Your hands... your blood-stained hands you wash
‘It is clean’ you think because you cannot see
Your eyes, they are sealed! Blind to the simple truths!
At meals you sit in the company of your cohorts
Devouring dreams and futures of the young
You breathe the foul stench of murderous deeds
Unending cries of the dead echo through the universe
Reaching high to the throne of the one Creator
Who is this god that you serve?
Under cover of night at clandestine forums you speak
In villages, towns and cities where poverty strangles
Where hatred, intolerance are inherent
Where vulnerable young men and women, beguiled
Brainwashed to hate and destroy their own lives
In light of day in the presence of strangers
Your words flow free like fresh golden honey
Rich and thick with lies and deception
Making incredible promises you could never deliver!
From lips perverse and pregnant with deceit
And who is this god you serve?
You may attempt to hide what is written in your heart
'Though quite often you succeed, yet never without a struggle
For truth and light are "alive" and will not be buried forever!
In this universe created out of order, be assured, there is an appointed day
When all men will give account for the time spent here on earth
The enemy, you claim, is anyone unlike you
Whether it be !in color, religion or race or whatever!
Stop! We would all do well to look deep within,
Past that mirrored image is you... your "enemy"
The one who murders with intent
Who is this god that you serve?
Who is this ‘god’ that you serve so diligently
This ‘god’ that requires mere mortals kill one another
On his behalf, and to accomplish what goals?
Implicitly I believe in the One true God
Who made everything out of nothing but His Word!
Who forbids pride, greed, hatred, lies and murder!
Who still, by the way, stays His mighty hands
Being desirous that no man should perish
His Word has gone out and will not return void
Patiently he's waiting our repentance,
Rest assured He will not wait forever!
By a mysterious twinkle in an all perceiving eye
A form energetic gentle breathing
The grand consummation of design
Ignited by universal dreaming
Enchanted stars into their life giving
The dance conceptual
The ballet between
Principals masculine and feminine
These consorts of the living
Entwined into harmony
To write themselves on creations symphony
Express the form of universal diversity
A sun rising over mountains earth
Forest beneath a conclave of animals
The still waters first expectant rush
Sounds the cosmos fulcrum of birth
There formed the human footprint of infinite sand
Perceptions eternal touch
The spell of ages awakened
And one born into many physical forms
One into many
And as a thread now dangles loose
Disconnected from purpose of cause
Wanders a sea tumultuous
No belief in compass direction lost
Clamoring rudderless the thousand names of God
Pleading a million prayers to suffering must
A walk to the end of identity
This now scattered life of dust
Still searching the obvious for the sacred
Concocting explanations of conscious
Nit picking the tassels of paradises expected faults
The miracles of nothing more than dirt
So fallen to nightmare century
The enemy human devours humanity
And by oath swears itself
Be born of unknown divinity
In thousands generation of quintessence spark
A futures riddle plays diffident mark
But to confound the constant
And miss the perfect impulse of life
The willing blindness brings to darkness
All the blessings of light
Impetuous resolution of a fickle noose
To its own slavery has brought us
From spirits truth distracted
By bubble gum boredom infected
And to the cohorts of fear
Became so entrusted
What but death scares the child
Who alone in innocence could revive
These dull collective eyes
To the promised garden of eternal love
Enchanted stars kissed into their life giving
The dance between conceptual
The ballet of a circle
Feminine and masculine principals
Purpose and cause perfect the impulse of life
To be absent the miraculous
Such would be a true cause for concern
One born into multitudinous of form
CHARLIE'S CARTOON CHARACTERS
Once upon a time, long, long ago, in a far away land, in the land where Charlie lived, there was a group of cartoon characters who felt as though they were the greatest thing to come along since sliced bread was put on the market. They were truly a curious bunch of characters who could be seen on any given day careening down the thoroughfare on their coveted tricycles causing people to scatter for fear of being crushed by these cavorting crazies who carelessly chose to clutter up the sidewalkway and the crosswalk while practically choking with laughter.
From the other side of town, there came a handsome, muscled up soon to be champion of the people because he had come to clean up this careening group of cartoon characters and put Charlie in his place. This champion's name was Clint, as in Eastwood, but even more impressive. He came into town on his cherished red, white, and blue skateboard. Clint was on a crusade. Yes, he was certainly charismatic and rather charming with his crooked little curved lip smile and the cheroot cigar clamped tightly between his crystalline teeth. Well, his very appearance was enough to convince Charlie and his gang of cohorts to seek a change of scenery and move to an entirely different city. Clint never even had to get off of his skateboard except to convince a certain little campus cutie that he was to become her cherished companion and settle down in a clean little cabin on the corner of Clint Avenue and Colleen Boulevard. Yes, that is what the town folks named that location. Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention that the little campus cutie was named Colleen. She and Clint are the proud parents of Curtis, Catherine, Constance, and two classy little girls named Jan and Andrea. They all live happily in Cunningham, Colorado. Cunningham is a little place named after a poet, Tom Cunningham. Tom and another noted poet named Bob Hinshaw help Clint maintain law and order as they sit around thinking up stuff to write for folks to read when they don't have anything better to do.
13 November 2018
For the contest sponsored by Caren Krutsinger
There is us and them, but we must learn
Who is us and who is them ... whose blood is on the floor?
Whose illusions like shambled mansions burn?
No lack of compassion here makes the suffering of the poor,
Nor closed the factory doors. None can sell
The houses closed; it's living hell in the shrivelling mines
Forget the popular explaining, or go to hell;
Mark them who mark you with the beast's cold designs.
With their newspapers, and slick bias reports
They feed delusions, hate and lies. Deprived workers made
Into self-centered seekers. O divided cohorts,
We fall a silent wall. For devalued homes, full value is paid
Or leave them for shelters so banks can twice
More their income make: first the bailout, and then resale.
All our tax money for repayment would suffice
If the bailout was vouchered to us, no business would fail.
The people would pay bills, business prosper,
Employment continues, and markets grow stronger. It's all
The truth there is to spending. Tell me mother,
With children and no tomorrow; tell me father sucking gall;
Who hoard the dollars, who hoard the gold,
Where is all the money gone? Where is credit, where is loan?
Where is the pension toiled for in the cold?
Who still makes profit, who control the banks we use to own?
Where is your spring? Why do summer trees
Die? Where there is spring the ruinates are fruiting in bloom,
Change is really more than scent of the breeze;
Where is our spring, for so long, so long the shadow of doom.
Did we not save from our sweat and sacrifice?
Could they not keep trust in that alone? we paid for the keep
Of earnings gone. They with theoretical device
Took it all, took it all. Yet it is for the broken lives that I weep.
Do we for justice march or insular issues blown
Big on every newspaper page? Do call this charade diversion?
Then why are we duped if the trick is known?
Our congress is ourselves in the streets, bring there our vision
Let us march against them, let us now defeat
The prison makers, the medical hostage takers, the pretenders
And deceit. If it's time to die, die on your feet!
Not like cowards harassed, fearful, weak, we are mass warriors!
Hell is a place of eternal torture
With restlessness’ angst and despair-puncture
Sealing the faithless in their doomed future
Midst cruel hatred’s defiant gesture.
Hell is a prison of endless darkness
Where misery’s gloom prevails in blackness
Due to sufferings, despair, hopelessness
Leaving the convicts in their guilt’s fierceness.
Hell* is a cell of everlasting torment
Expressing death's wailing every moment
As sorrows, anguish, woe wildly lament
With constant gnashing of teeth engagement.
Hell is a dungeon where there’s no exit
And each one slides toward bottomless pit
Struggling to reach foot stool summit
Yet never to taste freedom’s air a bit.
Hell is lake of fire** where God’s wrath abides
Unreached by His mercy, while His grace hides
There, worms die not, with pleas’ screams at all sides
Along unheard prayers … deserving chides.
Hell awaits everyone who’s a sinner
Bearing “You’re forever condemned” banner
No one can flee from punishment runner
While Satan and cohorts serve cursed dinner.
Hell can be missed by trusting the great Lord
In placing faith in God upon His Word
He vanquished hell’s might with His divine sword
For those who are in Christ in sweet accord.
Hell is indeed closed to the redeemed soul
Assured by the Almighty's loving goal
Granting eternal life**, forever whole
Through Jesus Christ in His great Saviour's role.
*Luke16:23And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments...
**Revelation 20:14 - And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Revelation 21:8 - But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
***Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
October 5, 2018
Edited on March 5, 2023
2nd place, "Hell" Poetry Writing Premiere Contest
Sponsored by Robert James Liguori; judged on 3/10/2023.
Whereas last night the full moon made the night resemble a cold day
Today clouds give the night its old shrouded, crowding demeanor.
Ghosts stalk the forest gleaming (at me) from just beyond the circle of
light thrown by the fire.
You, old night, I wish to make my peace with.
Eventually I know even I (I think, I'm told) must enter naked, a cold
north wind in winter or a gentle September breeze instructing my sole
spirit . . . .
There exist powers overwhelming for the human body and mind.
The aborigine's untold night of meditation on the mountain, coming away
with his life-long totem and power.
The mountains tonight are alive with benevolence that could (for one
lacking humility and respect or the hunter's perspicacity) flame up
into insane malevolence.
You, old complete night, I wish to make my peace with
Being utterly a creature of the water and the light.
Night on the mountain, the human animal alone, without cohorts, speech
and music inane without other ears to listen
Yet blasting, blasting against the night
Even after fire dies, its skin still the halo beacon to nothing in nothing,
Mind pouring on the electricity, outward to friends back in the cities
Receiving in return only strange sounds.
The ear must differentiate and protect.
Just as fluids within keep the body balanced so must the ear when the
eyes are blinded by night
Balance the mind. Eyes, heroes of the day, enjoying orgiastically
autumnal delights
Are now slaves to every primeval passion of the mind.
But the ears: it is a sound they have heard before and can identify.
Night, old strange night (were we once acquainted?), I wish to be at
peace with you by becoming knowledgeable.
Fear like fire clings to its fuel.
I wish to dampen passionate fears by attuning the five senses to all that is
normal dark and day.
To know the habits and cycles of everything I live beside
And my inner spirit become a silent tide attuned to nature's lunacy.