Short Muskets Poems

We invented the spear, and the mammoths were dead.
Then our flintlocks and muskets filled bison with dread.
Next came chainsaws and oil:
planting bones in the soil.
What new wonders I wonder will spring from our head?...

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Ohio slips in and out of suburban gardens
shedding grey skins,
until 
native red and green feathers
crash out of soil and sky.
Climatic airs stamp on thunderclouds.
Painted for war, it leaks blood onto old muskets.
Tomahawks clash above Walmart shoppers.

In the sparse woods, it smokes,
and it does not give a damn 
for nicotine gum....

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When Sitting Bull and Colonel Custer were locked in mortal battle,

   And with arrows flying and heard was the muskets' fearsome rattle,

      Finally surrounded and when all hope was lost, Custer was heard to say,

         "You must be bull sittin' me!"  Proclaiming with his last breath, "Foul play!"

Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(c) All Rights Reserved...

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In the sunken hollow a gray mass 
addles
A silhouette of swaying muskets 
shadows
Braying horses the silent vigil 
rattles
A curdling breeze across feted 
expanse prattles

The stilled pageant concludes with 
the order, "charge"
From sheltering tree line, a 
disheveled mass doth barge
A shrieking, cacophonous chorus 
christens the onslaught
Menacing octave wafts;
Union, tidal waves to 
distraught...

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Cannons are filled with gunpowder-
dozens of cannon balls sorround them;
men's muskets are cocked,
and bayonets firmly fixed against their mouths;
the ship furiously sails forward, leaving behind
terrace-shaped ripples on both sides.

Captain Redbeard is not taking any chances
in capturing the treasure map that leads
to the City of Gold. 

British men-of-war are a few miles away;
the English Queen is ready for war
in South America........

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Final days

Rocks they threw and stabbed with sticks
Fought and died for a piece of land
Arrows flew and spears too
At the very dawn of man

Cannons roared and muskets flashed
A sword in every hand
Fighting for the god of war
The medieval man

Rattling bullets grenades explode
Dying where they stand
Saying mass in poison gas
The birth of modern man

Total destruction fiery graves
The earth turned into sand
Fingers poised atomic noise
The final days of man...

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million miles across the room
you sing your insect chants
your contours blurred
like ocean cathedrals
and our love is like a missile
and muskets

cheers to the dark and the endless

'cause someday we'll live, I promise
far away from this mass dementia, 
macabre spectacle, 
manufactured beasts
and fabricated lies
at the bottom of the seafloor
in our own shell house
in Mariana Trench

but for the moment
no one's driving this burning car
out of consciousness...

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