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A civil war ferociously raged

A civil war ferociously raged...

within complex edifice...
derelict hulking corpse delineated courtesy
seared, singed, smoldered smithereens
formerly robust warrior
slain during prime of his life
heavenly corporeal outstanding entity
subjected to fateful foragers
courtesy camping buzzfeeding carrion -
fancy feast for famished
uber twittering, jump/kick starting
crowing angry birds

made short shrift
decayed discarded detritus
filched flesh from felled soldier
denuding human legendary poet
picked bone clean
his once powerful promising physique
skeletal remnants displayed burnt offerings
abandoned sun bleached,
petrified lovely bones
strewn across a field of shattered dreams
desiccated skull detached situated askew

athwart castoff liberated phalanges
impossible mission to envision
former formidable specimen
fallen hero pronounced earthen imprint
traced impression outlining
his outsize stature
bonafide definition where his corpse laid
only memory remains of doodling yankee,
(a Norwegian bachelor farmer wannabe)
harkening back and plucked from
the "little town that time forgot
and the decades could not improve."

Composite character sketch
of arbitrary conjured fighting
jaunty opportunistic understudy
strong likely to be template
of actual anonymous template
forgotten in the aftermath melee of battle
subsumed by and belonged to history,
a bit part he played after
North and South pitted against each other,
though the former named Union soldiers
during the War Between the States
acquired many names and nicknames,

especially by the Confederates:
They were called Billy Yank,
blue bellies or blue coats,
which spontaneously generated idea
came to my mind linkedin
to a personal affinity
for aforementioned rebellion to some people
after Confederate troops fired
at 4:30 a.m. April 12, 1861
on Fort Sumter April 1861
initially President Lincoln
described the situation as an “insurrection.”

But within months,
he instead adopted “rebellion.”

That word evoked
a more distinctly negative connotation
then than it does today,
or rather prior to the heavily armed,
Trump-incited mob attack
of Jan. 6, 2021, an attack 
(premeditated in my humble opinion)
not just on the U.S. Capitol building,
but also on democracy and the rule of law.

Though at no time did I enlist
in the armed services,
(although after high school
my parents coaxed, goaded,
and loathed their second born
and only son intimating
becoming a nonconformist, 
and nonestablishmentarian, ne'er do well,
(which outcome adequately sums
up how mein kampf evolved),
nevertheless yours truly exhibits

psychologically traumatic wounds
synonymous with the horrors of mortal kombat,
and clear out of the blue
behavior associated with deadly carnage
oozed out from every one of my pores,
misleading an observer to deduce
writer of these words experienced
and underwent text book example
being shell shocked
under heavy bombardment.

At present attention of mine plugged into a biography titled Custer's Trials | A LIFE ON THE FRONTIER OF A NEW AMERICA | storied author T.J. STILES, current reading material populates thought processes of mine with trappings of internecine bloodshed forever wrenching fledgling United States of America away from slave holding Southern lifestyle. 

Enslaved people in the antebellum South constituted about one-third of the southern population. Most lived on large plantations or small farms; many enslavers owned fewer than 50 enslaved people. Landowners sought to make their enslaved completely dependent on them through a system of restrictive codes.

Copyright © Matthew Harris

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Book: Shattered Sighs