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Ken Pepiton Oct 26
Spukhafte Fernwirkung//
-ping

On the morning
of March 16, 1968, American soldiers
from "C" Company came
into the village of My Lai…
-Conti's testimony, he stayed
Second tour he got arrested,
he was an armorer for First Cav,
I know a guy who knew him
when he got arrested, on duty.
About 1970, before Cambodia.
Back at the itch to think about 1968
from 16 MAR 68,
spooky was a DC3 with six miniguns,
spending nickles by the ton.
spukhafte Fernwirkung//
-ping

The next day, these toes
on the end
of me,
touched the tarmac
at Bien Hoa, beginning this memory
of instants, impressionistic
at best, something like YouTube shorts
taken
from chronological context
to fit the news between ads
for aging related aches and pains past
and present.
mehr spukhafte Fernwirkung//
-ping

In my 20 year old self,
in quest of lines showing duty done,
on my political career Résumé of fitness
to lead, to  me being mentored by Newt,
in American History, as he saw it, true,
Newt forsaw the EMP threat, and
scored an audience of told yous,
proud to have learned bullet
making after school… at the NRA clubhouse.
und mehr//
-ping ping ping

Triumphs and Indians, ' never saw a flathead Harley
until the summer of 1969, I saw the wreck, a Harley
wrung young Jimmie Hudgins neck, and he lived,
but he never went with us who did, and came back
as different as night and day, other people,
through and through,
truly on another trail, beyond the reason used in war.
fur spukhafte Fernwirkung
we took to spirit warring, with quarks
on our side, holding this thought

Pop, we inhabit bubbles as big as we imagine.
I long believed we live in bubbles of all we know.

I was wrong.
Become unmazed, unentangled, literally
free to define what you leave be true,
testy, feisty, wanna fight?
Or phuckaround with physics and spells,

Hallowed has meaning, yet, amen?

Even odds, live to the end…

Revelation
See, I had been infected,
seeing as I held
memories and lines,
I took for testimony Stephen Crane
put to ink, made me link that
now, not then, to a canvas,
Ms. Butler's Roll Call,
any
one approaching
the age where children are taken for war,

National Religio Significado duty accepted
as each pledged aliegiance, under God,
or else the communist spectre
brought unspeakable
horrors of HIROSHIMA!

Downwinder's loved to watch the flashes
- line on  crypto classification;
- subject locus south of river
On my DD 214, I was eligible to live on
Partaking of Largesse I earned by being
still alive and secretly, something
of National Pride Proving Passage right,
my nation, now,
pays me to breathe,
and learn until I die or ever happens,
Popt to your situation, reading
not involved,
after all
way beyond ever
after that revelation,

this is it, we did not die, nowhat,
Put on this mind, think these words,
you are you at last phaze myelination,
or your signals are phading,
but we got clear text 5 by 5, read on
seem
a survivor
of a specified exposure
to war,
a year, was deemed enough, and enough
to share
on circumstantial instances
when you think
okeh, what good could I do if
I accepted the truth
of the tree
of knowledge teaching only permanently

through experience passed through
and seen from this side… so then

I freely say, I know, what this is…
my life's cache of idle words, accounted for,
and activated
wise decision weighs against luck,
choosing liberal arts and sciences
to become a force made right
by the blood of Jesus to fight
any enemy
so declared,
by God's local employees
and the men He arranged
to be shaped
into wielders o
f carnal weapons, so awesome
cost for the risk not taken
2024 chances, short odds
of the answering invention's wise domain
above all answering witty inventions used

- to blow our little holy relics to dust

to make boys believe there is glory
found in fighting
for Nobel aspirations,
for asking noble questions, much glory
-+- does peace made
with words earn,
to deal with
all ra' adversity to intricately, functionally
beautiful towb be left to become the message.

God's chosen Nation's policy of people use.

{https://www.rct.uk/collection/405915/the-roll-call}
As Stephen Crane has been said to have said:
They come, I write them, that's all they mean until you read them
Stephen Crane
. In terms of style and inclinations, he borrowed from many categories but settled on none; he was a Romantic, an impressionist, a Symbolist, a naturalist, a realist, a Modernist.

oeuvre or opera,
operational patterns impressing
conscientious objects indelibly,
meme grit destined to be teardrop pearls.

A Man Said to the Universe

By Stephen Crane
A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”

In the Desert

By Stephen Crane
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, *******,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”

Source: Twentieth-Century American Poetry (2004)
Unpolished Ink Jun 2020
Wading haiku bird
       So simple and elegant
       Feeds on a few words
Rey Lynch May 2020
You always waited for the moment
When the wind will come
And take you away

Like a paper crane

Gently dancing with the breeze
Flying far, far from me
You couldn't see
The tear on my cheek
But it's okay
It will dry

And maybe someday I to will learn how to fly
Silver Aug 2019
delicate folds into endless
creases, the wrinkles
in mother's hands. asking for
more, taking
& creating new faces
when you think the last of you is gone.

& though the world may
    tuck away your
    flaws &
    pleat you into
    origami stars,
take to the earth,
uproot the trees.

stand tall as your last in-
carnation,
become the called bluff
& bloom in the space
between   sky
                   &
              ground.

                     before you hit the earth,
                     become the bird that you
                     are & perch on
                     opportunity.
8/5/19

experimenting
samara lael Jun 2019
you covered
your deceiving sentences
in pretty paper,
letting the gold flecks
blind the careful,
truth-seeking eye.
each fold you made
masked the truth
even further;
the edges too thick
to tear through.

you made lying
an art.
perfecting your trickery
with each crease;
simulating
the false concern
on your brow.

how many steps
did you take to hide
your intentions
or your secrets?
how many incisions
did you make
on your victims?
relationships
are supposed to be
beautiful demonstrations
of life;
not crumpled up
pieces of false hope
& fake actions,
curated to bend
at your command.

i tried to keep track
of what moves you made
so that i could make sure
you wouldn’t repeat them
on me.
but your nimble, paper cut
fingers moved too fast,
& before i knew it,
i was trapped in a suffocating
paper thin, paper-slicing
maze.

if only i had the scissors
to cut myself out of this pointy mess.
but once i unfolded one lie,
the rest unraveled before me
til there was just one
piece of paper
with the marks
showing where i
could have caught you out.

look at all those little lies folded up
into something so intricate
that looked treacherously beautiful
from the outside,
but was simple & sinister from the start.

you contorted me into myself,
creating an aesthetic crane.
but i learnt to fly out of my cage,
& out of your clasp.
i won’t be pleated
into an origami opus
for you to
display & deride.

i am not your paper to fold or decorate.
not aimed at all. just caught inspiration from origami and though that lies unfold just like it; when you discover one, the rest of them unfold.
Savouring  ever
The behoof of cheer
Flying
White crane of hunger
***** the peach bitter
Dropping
The desire went sour
Alleging for better
Flavouring.
©shadeofalonely_girl
Written in Lai Poetry form.
The lai is another French form. It’s a nine-line poem or stanza that uses an “a” and “b” rhyme following this pattern: aabaabaab. The lines with an “a” rhyme use 5 syllables; the “b” rhyme lines have 2 syllables. It feels kind of like organized skeletonic verse.
Tuan Do Mar 2019
The wilted crane,
The crimson flower,
Too far to fly,
Too beautiful to pick,
Destined to never reach.
A single hesitation is a dozen years.
Brandon Conway Sep 2018
The midnight air is filled with
fetid sewage
the city block houses
yards of gravel and broken bricks
decorated streets of graffiti and *****
roaches skitter across sidewalks

A homeless woman sleeps on the sidewalk
a hundred yards away from the lofts
where I am safe

And I think where did it go wrong?

You lie here every night
with a casted foot and crutches
covered with the remains of a blanket
wondering where the next meal hides

Do you beg or play the raccoon?

This city never slows
sirens howl to the light polluted sky
constantly
like a coyotes staccato bark

Cranes reach toward the heavens
with a question to ask God

Can we build to your home and charge a fee to view the gates?

The nightclub below full of drunks
or to be drunks,
bellowing for attention
before riding home with a stranger
and waking up to another mistake
of empty emotions

With a hunger for acceptance
one will venture out
with one of questionable honesty
if the drugs are cheap

And here I am
walking the ***** streets
at one in the morning
in this menagerie of a city
because I can’t

Sleep

absorbing the sights and the smell
of sick and disgust
but in the morning all will be

Different

The sun will hide the dark
the sky will add color
the homeless will be camouflaged
with the busy crowd
buildings will look alive
bustling with people
the crane will be building
looking for an answer

And I still will not be able to

Sleep.

**** this filthy city.

And yet, I wouldn’t call any other place home.
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