Short Foxholes Poems

~~ Yes, Virginia. There are agnostics and atheists in foxholes. ~~...

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Impermanence by O.J. $traight
Inspired by Happy Hurts - Icon for Hire

My blood, my life source
I fear waking up
An atheist.
No atheists in foxholes.

Well I’m in the hole, 
The pit, 
The depths of despair, the 
dead poets society
Carpe Diem, Seize the Day, boys
Help me.
…I’m not that innocent. 
...

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DEFEAT

Out of the waves they come.
Helmeted army of crabs
Trundle over the perfect pools 
Of starfish and periwinkle,
Murking up the sandy bottom
Of their foxholes, 
Armoured claws testing each mollusk for food,
Sidling up to my toes
In marauding hunger.
I retreat  inland,
Allowing them their beachhead....

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There exists no place
   Outside the Lord's grip -
From the outposts of space
   To the eclipse of a pit -
He's never far away

And even more so -
   He's on the war field
In the foxholes -
   In the nursing ward
And in the catacombs.

Where else should He be
   But with the wounded
In body and spirit, prithee?
   As two are wed -
Jesus - be ever with me....

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The kitten patrol was alert and ready for something to start.
Hiding in the hills among the leaves of autumns’ trees.
Kicking oak and maple offerings out of their foxholes.
What do you see Captain? The head guard kitten asked.
The other kittens were at a loss as to what they were expecting.
The road was clear, there was no indication of a warring troop.
No dusty trail; nothing!...

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Every time he loves
Flowers travail
From courtship to marriage
He leaves a trail
Of dead blossoms.

Every I go to war
Flowers and children wail
Where bombs fall from magma rain
From seared and blownout foxholes
There is a dead trail
Of flowers on bumps of graves

Every time we make love
Flowering you
I die to become a spat of blood
Emotions slithering back
To the crinkled autumn tree
With the dead bud of spring....

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Tattoos were anathema in ‘52
on any man who got one 
after an all-night drunk

or to impress a girlfriend.
But not a word was spoken to 
a man who made it home 

tattooed after serving 
with his company in Korea.
Any man who made it back 

was welcomed whether 
he had Popeye on his bicep 
or his girlfriend's name

even if the girlfriend married 
someone she had met while he 
was digging foxholes in Korea.


Donal Mahoney...

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