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Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
preliminary explanation

before i really begin the project i have a few scatterings
of thought that made me do this, without real planning,
a different sort of impromptu that poetry's good at,
less Dionysian spur-of-the-moment with an already
completed poem entwined to a perfect ensō,
as quick as the decapitation of Mary Boleyn with the
executioner fooling her which side the swing would
be cast by taking of his hard-soled-shoes -
i mean this in an Apollonian sense - i know, sharp contrasts
at first, but the need to fuse them - i said these are
preliminary explanations, the rest will not be as haphazardly
composed, after all, i see the triangle i'm interested it
but drawing a triangle without Pythagorean explanation
i'm just writing Δ - i'll unravel what my project is
about, just give me this opportunity to blah blah for a
while like someone from an existential novel;
what beckoned me was the dichotomy of styles,
i mean, **** me, you can read poetry while in an awkward
yoga position, you can read it standing up, sitting down,
eating or whatever you want - obviously on the throne
of thrones taking a **** is preferred - the point being
what's called serious literature is so condensed for
economic reasons, font small, never-ending paragraphs,
you need an easy-chair and a bottle of cognac to get
through a chapter sometimes - or at least freshly mowed
grass in a park in summer - it's really uncomfortable because
of that, and the fact that poets hardly wish upon you
to be myopic - just look at the spacing on the page,
constantly refreshing, open-plan condos, eye-to-eye -
but it's not about that... the different styles of writing,
prose and the novel, the historical essay / encyclopedia
or a work of philosophy - what style of writing can
be best evolutionary and undermine each? only poetry.
poetry is a ballerina mandible entity, plastic skeletons,
but that's beside the point, when journalism writes history
so vehemently... the study of history writes it nonchalantly,
it's the truth, journalism is bombastic, sensationalist
every but what courting history involves -
a journalist will write about the death of a 100 people
more vehemently than a historian writing about the Holocaust...
or am i missing something? i never understood this dichotomy
of prose - it's most apparent between journalism and history...
as far as i am concerned, the most pleasurable style of
prose is involved in the history of philosophy, or learning per se,
but i'll now reveal to you the project at hand -
it's a collage... the parameters?

the subject of the collage

it weighs 1614 grams, or 3 lb. and 8 7/8ths oz.,
it's a single volume edition, published by Pimlico,
it's slightly larger than an A5 format,
3/4 inches more in length, and ~1 centimetre in
width more, it has a depth of 1 and 3/4 inches in depth,
a bicep iron-pumping session with it in bed -
i was lying with this behemoth of a book
in bed soothing out a semi-delirium state
listening to Ola Gjeilo's *northern lights

and flicking through the appendix, and i started thinking,
no would read this giant fully, would they?
the reason it's a one volume edition is because
the only place you'd read such an edition would
be in a library, at a desk, and you'd be taking snippets
out from it, quotes, authentic references points
for an essay, esp. if you were a history student,
such books aren't exactly built for leisure, as my arms
could testify... after the appendix i started flicking
through as to what point of interest would spur me
onto this audacious (and perhaps auspicious)
act of renegading against writing a novel (in the moment,
in the moment, i can't imagine myself rereading plot-lines
after a day or two, adding to it - that's a collage too,
but of a different kind - and no, i won't be plagiarising
as such, after all i'll be citing parallel, but utilising
poetry as the driving revision dynamic compared
to the chronologically stale prose of history) - i'll be
extracting key points that are already referenced and not
using the style of the author - the book in question?
Europe: a history by Norman Davies prof. emeritus
at U.C.L. - the point of entry that made me mad enough
to condense this 1335 page book (excluding the index)?

point of incision

Voltaire (or the man suspected of Guy Fawkes-likes spreading
of volatility in others) -
un polonais - c'est un charmeur; deux polonais - une
bagarre; trois polonais, eh bien, c'est la question polonaise

(one pole - a charmer, two poles - a brawl, three poles -
the polish question) - mind you, the subtler and gentler
precursor of the Jewish question, because the Frenchman
mused, and not a German, or a Russian brute...
and i can testify, two Polish immigrants in a pub,
one senior, the other minor, one with 22 years under
his belt of the integration purpose, one with 12 years,
the minor says to the senior about how Poles bring
the village life to cities, brutish drunkards and what not,
it was almost a brawl, prior to the senior was charming
a Lithuanian girl, before the minor's emphasis on
such a choice of conversation turned into idiotic Lithuanian
nostalgia about the disintegration of the Polish-Lithuanian
commonwealth, primarily due to the Polish nobility.

10,000 b.c.

looking that far back i don't know why you even
bother to celebrate the weekend -
i mean, 10,000 years back Denmark was
still attached to Sweden,
England was attached to France,
and there was a weird looking Aquatic landmass
that would become a myth of Atlantis
in the Chronicles of Norwich,
speedy ******* Gonzales with the equivalent
of south america detaching itself from Africa...
mind you, i'm sure the Carpathian ranges are
mountains. they're noted here are hills or uplands,
by categorising them as such i'm surprised
the majority of Carpathian elevations as scolded
bald rocky faced, a hill i imagine to have some
vegetation on it, not mountain goats with rock and roof
for a blacksmith in a population of one hundred...
at this point Darwinism really becomes a disorientating
pinpoint of whatever history takes your fancy,
Europe - mother of Minos, lord of Crete,
progenitrix / ******* and the leather curtains
of Zeus's harem (jealous? no, just the sarcasm
dominates the immortal museum of attachable
****** to suit the perfect elephant **** of depth
the gods sided with, by choice, excusing the Suez
duct tightening of a prostate gland... to ease the pain
upon ******* rather than *******); mentioned by Homer
the Blind tooth-fairy, the Europe and the bull,
Europoeus and the swan, same father of wisdom to mind,
on the shores of Loch Lomond -
attributes a lover to the bull, Moschus of Syracuse,
who said earring Plato cured him of where the ****
should not enter even if it shines a welcome
in the disguise of Dionysius... revisionists bound to Pompeii
named Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens Veronese
and Claude Lorrain revived the bulging bull's *******
and her mm hmm mm, too gracious my kind, hehee...
Phonecians from Tyre and Io - so too the Sibyl of ****** -
and unlike the great river civilisations of the Nile,
the Ganges, soon to be the Danubian civilisations
and gorged-out-eyes-that-once-sore-colour-but-lost-sight-of-
colours-­after-seeing-the-murk-of-the-Thames...
soon the seas overcame civilisations of the rivers,
as Cadmus, brother of the thus stated harlot said:
i bring you orbe pererrato - hieroglyphics of the cage,
but not an owl or a hawk inside it -
so let's perfect speaking to an encoding by first
rummaging into learning how to procure the perfect
forms of counting - i say left, you say I, i say right
you say II, left right left right, what do you say?
VI. bravo! the Hellenic world just crossed the Aegean
and civilisation bore twins within the cult of a lunar-mother,
Islam of Romulus and Remus, a she-wolf
a canine of the night - according to another -
tremulae sinuantur flamine vestes - or so the myth goes -
a cherished phantom of what became the fabled story
of sole Odysseus with his ears open and the remnant
sailor's ears waxed shut - as if the bankers of this world,
revelling in culprit universal fancy than nonetheless
bred the particular oddities - lest we forget,
the once bountiful call of the sirens to the oceanic
is but a fraction of what today's sirens claim to be song,
a fraction of it remains in this world, the onomatopoeia
of the once maddening song, the crude *******
arrangement of vowels bound to the jealous god's
déjà vu of the compounding second H.

from myth to perpetuating a modern sentiment

you can jump from 10,000 b.c. to the Munich Crisis
of 1938 - 9 with a snap of the fingers,
imitating quantum phenomenons like gesticulating
a game of mime with Chinese whispers necessary,
if Europe is a nymph, Naples her azure eyes,
Warsaw her heart, Sebastopol and Azoff,
Petersburg, Mitau, Odessa - these the thorns
in her feet - Paris the head, London the starched collar,
and Rome - the sepulchre
.
or... die handbuch der europaischen geschichte
notably from Charlemagne (the Illiterate)
to the Greek colonels (as apart from Constantine to
Thomas More in eight volumes, via Cambridge mid
1930s)... these and some other books of urgency
e.g. Eugene Weber's H. A. L. Fisher's, Sr. Walter Ralegh,
Jacob Bronowski... elsewhere excavated noun-obscurities
like gattopardo and konarmya had their
circas extended like shelved vegetables in modern
supermarket isles, for one reason or another...
prado, sonata sovkino also... some also mention
Thomas Carlyle (i'd make it sound like carried-away isle,
but never mind); so in this intro much theory,
how to sound politically correct, verifiable to suit
a coercion for a status quo... Europe as a modern idea,
replacing Imperum Romanun came Christendom,
ugly Venetian Pirates at Constantinople,
Barbarossa making it in pickled herring juice
in a barrel to Jerusalem... once called the pinkish-***-fluff
of Saxony, now called the pickled cucumber,
drowning in his armour in some river or Brosphorus...
alchemists, Luther and Copernicus were invited on
the same occasion as the bow-tie was invented,
apparently it was a marriage made for the Noir cinema,
beats me - hence the new concept of Europe,
reviving the idea of Imperium Romanun
meant, somehow including Judea in the Euro
championship of footie gladiator ***** whipped
narcissists, rejecting the already banished Carthage
(Libya / Tunisia by Cato's standards) and encouraging
the Huns, the Goths and the even more distant Slavs and
Vikings to accept not so much the crucifix as
the revised spine of the serpent but as the geometry of
human limbs, well, not so much that, but forgetting
Norse myths of the one-eyed and the runic alphabet
and settling for ah be'h c'eh d'ah.
dissident frenche stink abbe, charles castel de st pierre
(1658 - 1743) aand this work projet d'une paix perpetuelle
(1713) versus Питер Великий who just said:
never mind the city, the Winter Palace... i have aborted
fetus pickles in my bedroom, lava lamps i call them.
the last remaining reference to Christianity?
Nietzsche was late, the public was certain,
it was the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713, with public reference
to the republica christiana / commonwealth was last made.
to Edmund Burke: well, i too wish no exile
upon any European on his continent of birth,
but invigorate a Muslim to give birth on it
and you invigorate an exile nonetheless:
Ezra expatriate Pound / sorry, if born in eastern
europe a ***** Romanian immigrant, pristine
expatriate in western Europe, fascist radio has
my tongue and *****, so let's play a game:
Russian roulette for the Chinese cos there's
a billion of them, and no one would really mind
a missing Chow Mein... chu shoo'ah shaolin moo'n'kah!
or a cappuccino whenever you'd like to watch
classic Italian pornographic cinema with dubbing
with nuns involved... Willaim Blake and his
stark naked prophesy, pope pius II (treatise 1458)
even though Transylvania, Tharce and Hungary
shared the same phonetic encoding with diacritical
distinctions like any Frenchman, German,
or Pole at the Siege of Vienna (1683)
to counter the antagonising Ottoman - i swear historians
do this one purpose, juggle dates and head-of-state figures
prior to entering a chronology - they must first try out
a ******* carousel before playing with the toy-train...
broadcasting to a defeated Germany public, T. S. Eliot
(1945) ****** import to into Western Germany
and talk of the failing moral fabric, China laughing
after the ***** intricacies of warfare of trade,
what was once wool we wished to be silk...
instead of silk we received vegetarian wool, namely
hemp, and Amsterdam is to blame... nuke 'em!
that's how it sounds, how a historian approaches
writing a history from the annals, from circa and
circumstance and actual history, foremost the abbreviations,
the fishing hook standards, the parameters,
the limits, and then the mathematics of history,
one thing culminating into another... contra Lenin
N. S. Trubetskoy, P. N. Savitsky, G. Vernadsky
Russian at the perks of the Urals - steppe Tartar shamans
or salon pranced pretty **** boys? where to put
the intoxicant and where to put the mascara... hmm,
god knows, or by 21st calculations, a meteor;
they say the history of nations is a history of women,
then at least the history of individuation
and of men who succumb to its proliferation
is astoundingly misogynistic.
Seton-Watson, among the the tombstones too reminded
of remarkable esteem and accomplishment
with only one gravedigger to claim as father...
as many death ears as on two giraffe skeletons
stood Guizot, men of many letter and few fortunes,
or v. v., incubators of cousin ***** and none the kippah
before the arrogant saintly diminished to
a justly cause of recession, ha ha,
by nature's grace, and with true advent of her progression
as guard-worthy pre- to each pro-
and suggested courteous of the ****** fibre,
oh hey, the advent of masqueraded woofing,
a Venetian high-brow, and jealousy out of a forgotten
spirit of adventure that once was bound
to hunting and foraging... forever lost to write  history of
a king dubbed Louis the XIV...
crucibles and distastes for the state to be pleased,
once removed from Paris, forever to Angevin womb
accustomed once more, at Versailles released -
as cake be sown so too the aristocratic swan necks
for worth of mock and scorn - and the dampening rain
rattle the blood-thirst of the St. Bartholomew's Day
slaughter, to date, the rebirth of Burgundy,
of Anjou, and with the dead king presiding, to be
of no worth in judging himself a king before god or pauper...
saluer Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville!
that i might too in stead rattle a few bones prior to burial
with the jaw that will laugh and chatter least
had it been to my kingly-stead a birth so lowly.
then at least in satisfactory temperament i procure a
judgement of the noble like of a *****
for an hour's worth of pistons and jarring tongues...
as if from a nobleman then indeed as if from a *****,
for who sold Europe and said: Arabia, if not the
Frenchman, the Englishman, the Spaniard?
the former colonial conquests served you not enough?
i imagine the reinstatement of Israel like
the Frankish states under Philippe-August...
precursors to a cathedral dubbed Urban the 2nd's..
there were only Norwegian motives in the Ukraine
and the black sea... Israel to me is like plagiarism
of the Frankish states of the middle-east, with Europe
slightly... oom'pah loom'pah mongolian harmonica.
some said Rudyard Kipling poems,
some said Mr. Kipling's afternoon tea cakes -
whichever made it first on Coronation St.
some also say the Teutonic barbecues -
it was a matter of example to feed them hog
and cannibalise the peasants for ourselves,
a Prussian standard worth an army standard of
rigour - Ave Maria - letztre abendessen nahrung -
mein besitzen, wenn in die Aden, i'd be the last
talking carcass...
gottes ist der orient!
gottes ist der okzident!
nord - und sudliches gelande
ruht im frieden seiner hande.

germany's lebensraum, inferiority and classification,
inferior slavs and jews, genetics and why my
hatred of Darwinism is persistent, you need
an explanatory noting to make it auto-suggestive
for Queen & Country? diseased elements,
Jewish Bolshevism, Polish patriotism,
Soviets, Teutons, the grand alliances of 1918
or 1945? Wilsonian testimony of national self-determi
Peace is a weapon
against the smallness of self
that excuses war.

Peace is the sharp blade
pruning the olive branches,
never drawing blood

Peace is soothing balm
for quarrel and division
instilled by zealots;

Peace is the watch-word
that makes soldiers deserters
of lower causes.

Peace desires itself,
making no root in travail
for other peoples;

Peace says, "Don't enlist
to be a pawn in the games
of elite slavers."

Peace has no Colonels,
Lieutenants, or Generals:
merely the faithful.

Peace is the Only.
No other weapon shall do
against each other.
I dedicate this with especial attention to the Yazidis and the Palestinians - victims of genocide - as people all over the world enthusiastically play games like Call of Duty while giving lip service to peace.

I am not a fan of shame but this is SHAMEFUL.
Silk, satin, velvet and lace
Bloomers aghast from raunchy strutting
Down the streets of London
1840
Men would drink arsenic
To be under your thrall
Asphyxiating themselves to be with you
The Colonels daughter
Out at night
Footsteps like raindrops you ditched your pantyhose
For delicious drips on your toes
Your fangs catching the light of the lunar eclipse on full
The hunt is on
Innocent Vanity Apr 2013
Too many injuries
To count.
Two days ago,
I lost my
Eye.
Kernels pop,
Colonels hop to get the popcorn.
Dessert is served; the
Desert makes
Ice-cream taste great.
I scream silently when I realize
They're gone, they've gone too deep.
Their souls swim in darkness.
There, deep in the dark, Martin may never reach Nemo...
Stupid Dory.
George Nsikak Oct 2016
At the Biafran front, I fought
Tearing down Nigerians
With shots of guns
We fought like men
Defending our lands
But with risk and fear
As some went blind

Among our troops
Were hatred and envy
Tribalism of doom
Had taken over our army.
Alongside my brother
We triggered together
Tearing down men
Like pales of feathers.

As a boy of sixteen
I saw terror in fifteen
Behold dead men lay like weeds
Vultures had enough to feed
Among the dead people
I saw my old father, he died still feeble.
Turning to my right
Lay my mother, sister at flight
My hands became weak
And my heart did bleed
They were killed by the army
Which I fought that they live.

Biafra was in famine
As children starved to death
A thousand Igbos massacred at night
As our troops retreat to die.
Nigeria flew their jets
Bombing no one but children and old women
A grenade caught my brother
And I knew it all be over.

The seaways were surrounded
Nigerian Navy locked us in our grave
No weapon came to Biafra
Even our camouflage had become rags
Enugu; capital of Biafra had been captured
There's nothing left, except to be raptured.

Oron and Calabar fell
Nigeria sent us hell
So in battle front we had
Nothing more than matchets and planks
Our major had ran
And we were left, to die at our hands.
With fear, my fellows fell
The fear of death, none could tell
I ran through the forest
Finding way for my escape
Lo there was a tunnel
And so I escaped Colonels.

Fifty thousand fighters quite survived it
They were buried alive
In mass graves for their deeds.
Down in my tunnel of sleep
I saw my family in the deep
Papa, I called aloud my father
He said go for the war is over.

Biafra had surrendered
But I had lost an arm
Millions had died
Diseases did bade them bye
The war, famine did sail them high
Though a soldier I survived.
I had lost my home family and lineage.
What would I do with a withered arm?
Flies had really fed it by
As the last man alive, No one cared whether I die.
So I died a lonely death
With no one to cry
Michael  Mar 2019
Idiotic Service
Michael Mar 2019
One morning safe in barracks while sitting on the loo,
Our Colonel, who'd put duty first, was wondering what to do.
Now, he'd sounded out the adjutant and the R.S. M.
He'd asked that pair what did they think would occupy the men.
They had answered 'drill, sir. Men love parade ground stuff'.
But the Colonel, after consultation, thought they'd had enough.
Their morale it should be lifted, satisfaction thus enjoyed.
'We must not have the men abused, but gainfully employed'.

Thus, next morning doing block jobs, the diggers were astonished
When told by sergeant of platoon that toilets must be polished.
''Tis for honour and the Company's pride' he'd said to busy soldier
'And pleased it is you'll be my boy before you're too much older.
That instead of stamping feet on square or theory of the gun,
Or concealment from an enemy, or stalking (which is fun),
You will spend your time with elbow grease each morning here with me,
Polishing taps and porcelain and cleaning lavatory'.

So that every week when CO. comes to look at WC.,
Accompanied by the Major and all the powers that be,
And they poke round toilet ledges, check louvred slats for dust,
These expert, fighting officers smelling drains because they must
Ensure their Colonels wish, and we to quench our Major's thirst,
So that of Battalion's toilets it's his that comes in first.
And young, fit, soldier volunteers, now feeling ****** annoyed,
Are to be denied all training to be gainfully employed.

But enough of silly moralising, holier than thee.
Who finally beat up all the rest for champion company?
Well, that was Sergeant Kusba, who were a devious swine.
He'd doctored water closets so they smelled like table wine.
Well, 'twer lemon essence really, after which one could not flush.
And a secret guard on toilet bowls to ward off morning rush.
Which was borne by me and Sergeant Glen 'til trickery did we smell,
After which we cornered Kusba in the Mess and gave him Hell.

So we as well began to use the lemon essence trick.
We all professed to satisfy but thought our Colonel thick,
As he stood at water closet breathing deeply, satisfied,
The diggers standing by their beds all laughed until they cried.
And the CSM., cognisant, fed up as much as we,
Served the Colonel and his minions a scrumptious morning tea.
Whilst they stood relaxed and at their ease upon our polished floor,
Between ***** trough on one side, on the other, closet door.
Edna Sweetlove May 2015
What does nineteen sixty nine mean to you?
The last dying tremor of the swinging sixties,
Woodstock and exotic moon landings,
Empty-headed teenagers and wasted hippies
Dancing in the fading glimmer of youth,
Their painted beads perished in the sun?

Or maybe you weren't even born then
And all you know is a tatty documentary film
About a media-created pop music fest,
And some footage of silver-shining Michelin men
Jumping about in lunar zero gravity,
(Which malicious rumour has it was faked -
Anything to distract the American public from
The inevitable national humiliation in Vietnam).

So let me remind you how it really, really was:
Swinging London was rocking like crazy,
Wow, it was so cool, the groovy discos served
Delicious lukewarm coca-cola after eleven p.m.,
And trendy Britain was a cute place to be gay
With homosexuality finally legalised
After a century of puritanical persecution,
Except that the law reform didn't apply in
Scotland or Northern Ireland or to the armed forces
And you had to be twenty-one and you could only do it
In private and if no third person was there.
And theatrical censorship was still in force
Which meant all naughty plays were blue-pencilled
By bureaucrats and narrow-minded prigs.

So let me remind you how it really, really was:
Religious riots in Belfast, Franco still in power in Spain,
And you could go there for a cheapo sunshine holiday
With watered down sangria in the shade of a bayonet;
The Berlin Wall an unchallenged affront to human decency,
Thanks to old man Kosygin in absolute power in the Kremlin,
His iron rule in force throughout Eastern Europe,
Poor Prague's defeat emphasised by occupying Soviet tanks.
And lovely Greece, birthplace of democracy, home to Zorba's dance
(Except that it was a criminal offence under the Colonels
To play any of Theodorakis' music because the most famous Greek
Was condemned as a ******* communist revolutionary *******).

So, let me remind you how it really, really was:
Nixon in the White House, half a million American troops
Fighting a losing battle for democracy in Vietnam
(More accurately against democracy, but the jury is still out on that),
And nearly as many US citizens on the march against the war.
Whilst the rest of the world looked on in indifference,
Since they had had enough common sense to stay out of it.
And when we think back to such a terrible, terrible year,
All the media seems to tell us is the insipid lie
That nineteen sixty-nine was a lovely summer of love.
It wasn't like that, it was boring and provincial and I was there.
brandon nagley May 2015
Absurd accumulations, broad- cloth's to wipe each bays station! What a joke of clownery tools.Irritated refuge, instigated neices and nephews miss their woeful father's.... One for a count, a whole cell to a slaughter.
Down and out lane I make mine way to your lonesome hell, where ankh arched wells draw back from higher hills..Robust outbreak of plentiful disease, orthopedics outclass your sneeze!!!!
Ovation applauded to ******* alike!!! Ordaters to outvoted daters, silence is thy key to your miserable life!!!!
Pasturage for slobs, corn for all cobs, your colonels panel design twists slow around the vine!!!!
Seconds until six, ten minutes until nine....... Will you behave like the boy you should be?
Or could have been?,
Tryst  Sep 2014
Why Oh Why?
Tryst Sep 2014
This is the Field Marshall, tall and grand,
Who bellowed at Generals beneath his command,
Who shouted at Brigadiers in fine attire,
Who hollered at Colonels to make them jump higher,
Who screeched at the Majors and caused them to shake,
Who yelled at the Captains to keep them awake,
Who squawked at Lieutenants to keep them in line,
Who wailed at the Sergeants in double quick time,
Who shrieked at the Corporals and made them feel small,
Who screamed at the Privates worth nothing at all,
Who stood in the trenches and will never forget,
When they ran a man through with a fixed bayonet,
And held his hands tightly, as watching him die,
They whispered to no one, *"Oh why, but oh why?"
An idea based on "The House that Jack Built".

First published 19th Sept 2014, 14:25 AEST
Kyle  Jul 2018
March
Kyle Jul 2018
To the grave
The incessant marching continues
In the grand parade the audience pile in one by one, all watching what is but a mirror
The General with a resolute calm leads his colonels into the fray, they bear his palls as they remain steps ahead of their Lieutenants who follow the procession
The Majors hold the privates who weep, knowing soon they may be promoted, and the enlisted stay far away from the exercise, still too green, not yet hazed into the brotherhood
It is in this display a man has chance to join the brotherhood
He watches the quiet never ending promotion of life, as some take their responsibility with grace and others as boys
It is the duty of the young man, our "Private", to turn and face the inevitable, knowing what is to come
Watching the pallbearers pass he who knows sees soon himself
Watching the Colonels frown knowing his youthful smile shall soon turn to such
And when giving the general his final salute, knowing it is not just to that fallen hero, but to each in his own time
Wk kortas Nov 2017
My regiment?  The New York 156th, B Company.
I’d left the farm in the hands of my wife and her uncle
(Polly and I never had children,
Something I’m grateful for now.)
We’d boarded the train in Kingston,
Figuring we’d have a picnic, see the countryside
Fire a few shots at the Rebels and the odd squirrel
And be home before snowfall.
The picnic was spoiled **** quickly, and not by ants;
We took fire within a half-day of meeting up
With the main body of the corps,
And couldn’t get our heads back up until **** near Appomattox.

Truth told, I don’t remember exactly how many men I killed
(And in some cases, “men” stretches  the truth,
As some of them looked like altar boys from the church,
Same age as the sons I’d never had.)
You find after a while it’s best to lose count,
Do what you can to forget faces
(Now that the beds are soft and the fields are quiet,
The faces come back to disturb my nights then and again.)
Fact is, I’m convinced I survived only because I rode down
What was human about me, or at least the good part;
Best to be like cows or some poor **** stupid ox:
Eat what you can where you can,
Sleep when you might have the option,
And, like the other poor dumb bovine *******
Simply waiting for the cudgel,
Don’t let your thoughts stray elsewhere
Until you’re more kin with the animals than anything else
(I remember Tommy Dunbar from over Esopus way
Brought his dog with him;
It marched with us all the way to Pleasant Hill,
And the only time I cried between enlisting and mustering out
Was when that mongrel snuffed it.)
Anyways, that is all over, and good riddance to it;
I’ve no desire to mount up
With the Grand Army of the Republic types
And go wave the ****** shirt in some convention hall in Albany,
Nor am I inclined to meet up with fellow graybeards
From the other side of the line to sleep in tents
And mock-shoot wooden rifles and imaginary minie *****.
It’s over, and I prefer to keep it that way.
Funny thing, the colonels and chaplains always insisted
That God was on our side, and I suspect their boys did the same.
I suspect (though I’d never tell preacher, of course)
That He left the field quite early in the proceedings.
Hey there
You there
Standing with the director
In his chair
Talking about the right actor
Slick back your blonde hair
While you’re mouthing to him

Talking about the movies
Sends you into a hitch
Time to talk about that *****
Who is up next
You know you’re not in the right situation
It’s time for the nation
Let’s go again
For the new generation

Looking at the congressmen
With badges pinned across their *******
And a politically-correct three-piece suit
With their largess
Drenched in sweat
Driving the rally into the unknown folly
To fear the unknown people of foreign cities

More than just a sign
It’s all in our precious time
The high-rollers
In their representative fashions
Taking over the world
And committing all the crimes
But that is just all they do
Let’s be moving on too

What about the generals, brigadiers and captains and colonels
With their epaulettes and patriotic decorations
Conspiring against the nation
Like chameleons
Thanks to their post
With ideas
Those are insidiously of corruption
As they stand host
To nations feasting on war
And diplomacy at the most

Political amusement isn’t it
The dichotomy of having aliens
Deported
And these braver politicos star in their expensive overcoats
See themselves getting promoted

It’s rather fun
When the bourgeoisie
With their Large brim hats
To protect them from the sun
Cash in
More money and hate
More than religious faith
Innocents supposedly drowned in sin
Don’t know when good will begin

With the Catholic Church
Being a prison of beliefs
Since the inception of time
Changing political opinion as we speak
Which brought forth with it unnatural urge
Hilarious isn’t it when politics starts to stink
When the crowds go berserk as they scream
For more religious retaliation and a lost dream

Fun isn’t it
For the vengeance seeking righteous prisons
Who wish their prisoners burn in the crimes
That they spin
Before they can live out of those times
And their whims

But who is to blame
The heart isn’t tame
Is it God
Who has made it rough
For the virtuous inferno of actions
That has been extinguished by the holy water of circumstance and disdain

Isn’t it easy to blame our surroundings
Rather than our actions and our fate
Subterranean Homesick Blues told us the people to stay away from and habits to stay from. This poem tells us the favorite people of the nation; directors, politicians, army generals etc. And tells us how they get corrupted and it involves satirical subversion.

— The End —