Soldier Quatern Poems

At five feet, five and a hundred and ten
The Marines said, “sorry, too small of a man.”
Yet he became greatest of World War men,
The Army’s...

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War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

It’s a darkness so sad and grim,
Dreams destroyed by the bleakest...

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She stood there, holding back her tears,
      He was going far, what to do?
She had to keep aside all fears,
...

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The truth stood downcast in the lie,
thinking it was better this way;
time would, our feelings, nullify
and let the mem’ry fade away.

Silhouettes hugging on a pier
the...

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Standing straight in columns and ranks, 
Heads newly shaved by the barber, 
Carrying guns loaded with blanks: 
New recruits after Pearl Harbor. 
  ...

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Columns and Ranks (20140925)

Standing straight in columns and ranks,
Heads newly shaved by the barber,
Carrying guns loaded with blanks:
New recruits after Pearl Harbor.

The Generals inspected troops,
Standing...

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The detail lowered the colors:
That weathered flag with stripes and stars,
That had crossed so many borders
In declared and undeclared wars.

Young soldiers debark for glories.
The detail...

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Vultures Feed  (Quatern, 1 May 2014)

The vultures fed upon the plains
As one tribe enslaved another
All they left were the dry remains
Husbands, fathers, sons and...

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A Soldier’s Foreign Woman  (Quatern 30 April 2014)

She kissed me like never before
While firecrackers burst overhead.
She never had kissed me before—
Kissing her back went...

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I have struggled from the fetal curl
just to burst upon the world
To reach, to grow, to strive;
I have stretched to be alive.

Years have come and...

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