Long Muskets Poems

Happy Fourth Of July, Or Happy Independence Day

On this day we celebrate and commemorate the birth of our nation, The United States of America's Independence from Great Britain's monarchical hold and liberty's triumph
Congress voting in...

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Resistance On The Iberian Peninsula

“Liberté, égalité, fraternité (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity),”
Scream French revolutionists as they guillotine monarchists heads, 1
Then crown Napoleon Bonaparte Emperor of France, 2
Who commands the French forces in wars raged across Europe.

The Grande...

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“Up men to your posts! Don’t forget today that you are from old Virginia.” 
– General George Pickett

Beneath Gettysburg's sun a merciless blaze
Stood Pickett with his face etched with war's haunting gaze.
A mind torn asunder...

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I've never seen a baby so merry as Martha...
They say March newborns are bellwethers for blissful Springs Mary...
Hannah, Haverhill has been a hard place to call home
I'm sorry about Elizabeth's hanging, 
Thomas has honored you...

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When the ocean’s calm and shiny it be joyous to behold
When the spyglass sights Port Royal there be good rum to be sold
When a pirate holds the spyglass and his ship be filled of gold
Might...

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Brackish-gurgling days that
Unobtrusively slid along
Past tussock grass and curled up 
Balls of Fern...
Glued tightly onto structured vanes
Of outstretched frond.
Venerable Mosses reciting epic tales,
Measured throughout Metronomical 
Strains,
Chanting methodically in harmonious
Downturn - 
Wherein contained: 
Foreboding dialects delivered...

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Stolen golden treasure chest
Dead man lying on his chest
Discarded like garbage
Because we act like we all savage
Eaten by vultures
As greed transcends cultures
Lying gypsies 
False omens like eclipses
Fake prophecies
They packed their bags for those ill fated...

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Jeremiah did not hesitate,
he drew one up into his sights.
His Kentucky fired in dawn’s glow
caught a redcoat, dead-to-rights.

The others charged, sabers drawn,
so Jerermiah fled into the near forest.
Hiding and quickly reloading his gun,
the British charged...

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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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General Cornwallis of Great Britain
faced a problem that he couldn’t resolve,
he’d won at Camden, they’d captured Charlestown,
but still the southern colonies wouldn’t fall.

Instead he faced a string of reverses,
lost at King’s Mountain and then at...

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...Outside the French guns continued to screech,
a blast rocked them all, and opened a breach,
morale was fading, beginning to sag,
the next day the French sent out a truce flag.

Ned watched from afar, he could not...

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In seventeen seventy-seven,
amidst the deep summer’s August heat,
Barry St. Leger, loyalist milita,
and the Iroquois walked on sore feet.

Their mission was clear: move down the Mohawk,
meet Burgoyne and split the rebel states,
except the Americans in Fort...

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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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...Baum’s men were caught in a hot cross-fire,
many quickly were sent to the grave,
their Indian allies wisely pulled out,
seeing no victory to be had that day.

The militia just kept pushing closer,
and destroyed the Hessian powder...

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It was after the defeat at Camden,
in the fall of 1780,
British Major Patrick Ferguson
sought to exploit Britain’s victory.

To secure South Carolina’s countryside,
he marched his loyalist forces forward,
threatened the men beyond Appalachia,
said he would lay waste...

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III.

Scott bought the farm and some dairy cows,
and set about building himself up.
He soon made a name for quality milk,
local wholesalers could not get enough!

One summer day he took to the plow,
preparing and old field...

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As they say, “Where there’s smoke, there is fire”
In this case it is certainly true
For a people who once ruled so many
find themselves more in place of the few
For so long they have led with...

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I saw ten ships departing north,
From out the grand Canal.
They each were armed with cannons four,
With mighty rationale.
Atop them flew my country's flag,
A phoenix white in pride,
It struck about the side of crag,
The first ship...

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Dropped anchor off the Fever Coast 
‘board a rake-masted schooner
Spooked by Ahab’s ghost. 
Lamps glowered through the yawning blanks
Casting bone-twisted shadows 
Over teakwood planks.
Salt biscuits and Jamaican rum; 
Heard the deep-throated rattle
Of the talking drum.

Count...

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(A Prophecy of Collapse)

Once upon a time, beneath stars and stripes,
Stood a colossus—loud, armed, and blind to its blight.
It roared not with wisdom but with greed and might,
Casting shadows across oceans, in day and night.

Its...

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Heading to a cauldron in the dry sea of sands
Far afield the Sahara shores devoid of life
With an array of dexterous army riding further North
Our horses neighs as honed swords beholds Amir al-Mu'mini's hands
Death on...

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Hour ago raised the morning sun
The eastern army outnumbers the hussars fifteen to one
The battle has began
Hussar horses with thousand thundering hooves begun their run

Eastern army cannons and muskets will discharge
As the hussars push forward...

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In the dark allies they hide with the muzzles of their guns and fly bullets with people screaming for safety out of dazzle.
Reading long speeches in suits they wove out of patriotism and deception
Greed, vanity...

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There is something in the air 
Reflecting on freedom’s one day scare 
Signing a declaration we want to be on our own 
Handful self-proclaimed leaders setting a tone 
It was John Hancock first holding the...

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[Note: this poem was inspired by a strange and terrible experience I had at 17  when I first set foot on the battlefield in 1965 after an interview at the college there: physiologically, it...

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