"ammunition" poems
It all begins
With pronouns
I becomes the subject
Of my project
Adding you
And collectively we
I choose you and me
And I exclude the he and the she
Until I am certain of we
You and I pick verbs
actions
Inflect them to match
fit
begin narratives
Transitive verbs take objects
You touch
tickle
tease
taste
take skin
*******
lips
me with words
Words have become a clause
But still a simple construction
So, you tickle me where?
For this you need a preposition
To position your tickling ammunition
Do you touch
tickle
tease me ON my *******
*******
thighs
buttocks
****
Do you feel me INSIDE my mouth
****
soul?
Positioning is envisioning.
Then you use adjectives
To modify descriptions of
Sensory inscriptions
So, gentle complements touch
Soft and passionate kiss
And you become superlative
And adverbs elaborate experience
expression
exploration
You fill me deeply
thoroughly
violently with all that is you
But adverbs can also mean time
Not sweet or cursed time
Or time denoting age
But timing is always important
And grammar dictates
That
Time adverbs are placed
As a beginning or an end
Like a lover's embrace
Thus,
This morning, you woke me with
A demanding "here and now! " and I will reciprocate this, tonight, I vow.
Conjunctions are sentence connectors
And sentences behave like detectors
Bodies balancing with and, but, or
Otherwise subordinate
And the scale tips towards
Conditioning hypotaxis
Making actions a complicated praxis
(before my mind can connect, you will have to pursuade it /pursue it)
But we coordinate conjunctions
Equally
I touch you
You touch me
Exploring
Exploding sensory functions
So, together we cry imperatives
Completing our ****** narratives
Moaning
Whimpering
Begging
Yelling: Please... bind me!
touch me!
bite me!
take me!
come!
Oh! Please, come!
I love the English language... ;)
Feb 24, 2013
Feb 24, 2013 at 5:10 PM UTC
Insecurity is wool blanket drenched in water
laying across my nose and mouth,
every breath i take in is a wicked reminder of everything i am not.
its sharp needle points prodding my pores
ripping apart the skin of my throat with every word i'm unable to speak.
Insecurity is facing a firing squad,
every bullet comes from the mouth, every tongue a trigger, every tooth ammunition
Your feet are nailed to the ground, an iron staple of your own making lacing through your toes.
The worst thing about it is that your hands are bulletproof shields,
and if you had the strength to raise your thousand pound arms,
you could use them to block your bruised up brain.
But you can't.
So you don't.
its being uncomfortable in your own skin, a bone shattering, helpless feeling that you
cannot change this.
no amount of compliments or beautiful words whispered in the darkness can fix it
insecurity is the building blocks of my personality,
I'm constantly tailoring everyone in my life to fit it, like a worn dress
I can't walk down the hallway, down the street, through a store
without the feeling of a thousand weighty words cutting into my skin
In every war my mind wages against my body
i stand there like marble, letting the bullets eat me alive.
Jan 29, 2014
Jan 29, 2014 at 9:38 PM UTC
Devilish blue eyes, frozen gaze.
Influencing me against my will,
Submitting into dropping defenses.
Overcome with an inability to escape,
I become bound by those piercing eyes.
Sapping once kinder thoughts,
Replaced by detached isolation.
Shuttering at the crack of the whip,
Blindly I walk to death.
Carved flesh ammunition against
You, weakness exposed.
Lacerations to the heart exchanged,
Milky fog clouds my oppressor.
Pieces held together by hatred,
One blow away from cracking.
Further into broken self.
All freedoms come at a cost.
Jun 4, 2015
Jun 4, 2015 at 10:32 AM UTC
I am alive by luck at this point.
I wonder if the gun that will eventually take me has been made.
Whose trigger will bury me.
How many bullets, like a flock of sparrows, will come carry my life to its final bed.
Today, I am alive but there is no law to thank.
If not me, then someone else.
Born into a game of chance we never asked for. Traded diplomas for obituaries. Traded graduation speeches for eulogies. Traded futures for an early grave. Forced to cash in their chips. We don’t want to play anymore.
And this too is eulogy. And this too is prayer. And this too can resurrect the coffin wood back to a tree. Can sing back alive whatever parts of you died with them. Whatever leapt in your throat at yet another headline.
Mourning until you, too, are a thing to mourn.
But we will no longer be martyrs.
We are the rude awakening to politicians who pawned out our safety, who bartered our lives for bribes.
You say “gun reform is not the answer” but all I can see is a bullet rattling like a pinball in an innocent student’s jaw.
You smell like gun smoke and
I can see the AR15 you're holding behind your back and
I guess it's easy to crack jokes about dodging bullets when you're the one firing them.
Give teachers books not bullets:
Kafka isn’t kevlar.
Bronte isn’t bulletproof.
And how sick is it that we must add school shootings to your list of proud american traditions.
Throwing opinions like punches.
How many more have to die before you decide your ego isn’t as important as you think it is?
And I, too, am buried alive
My soggy grave parting its greedy lips.
To you, my bones, when ground into gunpowder and mixed into water, taste like champagne.
My pulse, as thin as an obituary panting beneath sweaty palms, and sure
We are “just kids,”
But you are forgetting we are the next generation
And you autopsy your fists.
Call it reclamatory.
Lately, when asked “how are you?” I respond with a name no longer living.
And who knows if mine will be next
Apr 14, 2018
Apr 14, 2018 at 10:32 PM UTC
I may have given
you the ammunition but
you pulled the trigger.
Feb 22, 2012
Feb 22, 2012 at 4:02 PM UTC
finding fake joy in little lies
finding fake self worth in some shoes
new branded item
no one looks up on you for them
just wait 'til the mud tear them down
tell me who what do you see when you look into the mirror
is it someone you like?
is it someone you wanted to be?
the kid in you says hi to me
asking you to grow up so that he can too
to face the real world
like a real man should
armed with ammunition
that is real self-confidence
stemming firmly on the ground of wisdom
not fake accessories and marketing gimmicks
clink another glass
because that's how you face your problems
pout another story
for your non-existent friends to tell
inflated self image inflated ego
who you gonna fool with your little bell
Aug 30, 2018
Aug 30, 2018 at 9:52 PM UTC
Visits of condolence is all we get from them.
They squat at the Holocaust Memorial,
They put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall
And they laugh behind heavy curtains
In their hotels.
They have their pictures taken
Together with our famous dead
At Rachel's Tomb and Herzl's Tomb
And on Ammunition Hill.
They weep over our sweet boys
And lust after our tough girls
And hang up their underwear
To dry quickly
In cool, blue bathrooms.
Once I sat on the steps by agate at David's Tower,
I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists
was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. "You see
that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there's an arch
from the Roman period. Just right of his head." "But he's moving, he's moving!"
I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them,
"You see that arch from the Roman period? It's not important: but next to it,
left and down a bit, there sits a man who's bought fruit and vegetables for his family."
9k
I write in the midnight corner of now and what is to come. Sifting through the ashes of the forgotten. I seek what I fail to find in a light I can scarcely see. The rain washes the sins from my skin so that the ones inside can bleed back out. My words catch the air with gentle, intense passion. I caress the broken cheek hoping to fix it and finding only myself more broken. I know not of what is to come but I can prepare myself with the ammunition of my past. The brittle autumn wind calms me with the vibrant colors of a dying world. My mind wanders into the absent recesses of my twisted imagination. The words I write copy the voices in my torn heartstrings. I lust for the cold rain fingers that embezzle my mind. My soul is painted with the bright blackness of a blackhole's laughter. There is a butterfly caged in my stomach and I'm too afraid to let it free.
- - -
When will I know that I've found rapture?
~S.C. Kelley
Sep 3, 2018
Sep 3, 2018 at 3:04 PM UTC
Why would I listen?
To gain their recognition, follow their tradition?
I cant let them decide my mission, I am my own edition
Won't let them send me to prison
I see the risen of my ambition
I should use my cannon
And shoot a **** load of "Stay away" ammunition.
Won't let them take away my personality
Because that is my specialty
May 29, 2018
May 29, 2018 at 1:18 PM UTC
in the year 2462 those with nails protruding from their palms
will talk in ancient tongues
& sway the tribes of men to eternal love,
& endless ammunition
of the soul.
spiritus.
kin, galactic
& the golden fire.
throb the saga of man,
into hip ****** illusions and combustive color schematas.
we bury our dead in flower clippings
or skull bits.
[skateboarding rises as the highest form of intellectual sport]
thrum and plum-bum the sewers of electric babylon.
hive city reaching past gasp and wasteland,
her lips ruinous.
cement slabs and coils of fault with
vast artistic possibilities.
these skate-lords from their heaps, their clans, augmenting
& rattling bone masks
grinding themselves into meat-bit heroics
& death.
their teeth are yellowy awoken.
this is all seen globally,
via tele-cast-com-core-mind-warp-tech.
or video.
dreams impact reality
impact dreams
in such
that the cathode cortex filter, invented circa 2222,
evolves into a demi-god, a solar charged demon of unlimited knowledge.
& it mutates the psychosphere of our mainstream public mind
with countless projected memories.
[streamed alternate realities]
fills the belly and the brain,
but all those unhooked are skating.
sweet meat market.
ghost harddrives.
poor leftovers called children of the once-was-men
& their poolside parties.
they leap the rubble of centuries old plastic icons,
their boards, their weapons, their seeds and spit.
they hang chains from their necks
& spew black flame from their sunshaded boot-click
lickings.
they drink from large bottlesof elixer distilled
on old flowers
& worship archaic cassettes.
cults of cyborg women with gem-tipped-blade-additions
carve wooden planks from
groves of great oaks.
great oaken powers.
their creators chew gummies and bend time
to uphold
a proposed history of perfection.
they master pong from their crystalline towers,
& hire mathematicians to write
conceptual skate-deck algorithms,
solely for fun.
non-profit.
Jul 18, 2014
Jul 18, 2014 at 5:49 AM UTC
In the presence of the enemy
He split his force in two.
His red coated invaders
displayed contempt for the Zulu.
How else to explain their failure
to fortify the camp?
Twenty Thousand warriors
Put them in a deadly clamp.
It was a fearsome slaughter
redcoats falling by the score.
Thirteen hundred swept away-
No prisoners of war.
assegai thrusting spears struck home
The Sun would shine no more.
The Thin Red Line was broken,
each man fighting his own war.
With ammunition running out
They fought with blade and ****
Until knobkierrie clubs struck home
And stabbing spears found gut.
The officers with horses,
without honor, fled the fray.
Escaping only with their lives
No storied heroes they.
Jun 23, 2013
Jun 23, 2013 at 1:04 AM UTC
Isolationist theories
of my brutal development
A mask
In the world of passengers
Regretting every slight disruption
Making icy chatters of teeth
As we wonder
How will these small altercations
Affect the grand course
of my surreptitious collapse?
Just a violent object on an axis
A washer head
thrown into a tumultuous ocean of visions
A flickering correspondent
Lying on an abolition
The worst things happening to the best people
It spins and breaths and *****
This molested scared demon
Anally penetrating all that I believe is genuine
Reels of my childhood development
Played on repeat to search for ammunition
The tunneling rib cages of my insanity
The forest nymph of all that is good
The one who created me
Locked away in a windowless world
Analyzed as if lockness was one of them
I always thought it would be me
Falling to where I could not be found
How am I still standing?
Nov 30, 2010
Nov 30, 2010 at 9:35 AM UTC
1203
The Past is such a curious Creature
To look her in the Face
A Transport may receipt us
Or a Disgrace—
Unarmed if any meet her
I charge him fly
Her faded Ammunition
Might yet reply.
4.6k
You broke my heart
And threw it in a pile of dirt
I have no enemies
However, worse are you, than an enemy
Because, betrayal leaves scars
Which are even bigger than cars
And take as much time to heal
As it does, to complete a CA course
Which is of course, a huge deal!
You broke my heart
And caused me a lot of hurt
Truly did I care for you, you know
Thus, was it a massive blow
When we came to know the truth
Which destroyed the earth
On which my love was built
Since, loyal was I, to a fault
You broke my heart
And turned it into a shopping cart
You took advantage of my compassion
And used it as ammunition
For your deceitful modus operandi
However, thanks to the rescue operations
Led by my best friend and my sister
We put an end to the matter
However, rather protracted and tedious
Was the divorce process
And ultimately richer did you get, by a frigging four lakhs
For absolutely no fault of ours!!
You broke my heart
And ensured I nearly fell apart
However, healing am I
Slowly but surely
Thanks to my dear family
As well as my circle of friends
Not to mention, a few close cousins
All of whom ensure, I suffer not, for your sins
Our relationship may have had a bitter end
However, I am now free
And no longer, will I carry
The burden of a relationship
Which, in hindsight, was always going to be doomed
Even without all the cheating and manipulation
Of course, I may have to apply some caution
When it cometh to future relationships
However, I now understand the value of friendship
Better than ever!!
You broke my heart
However, I am making a conscious effort
To put all this behind
With the help of family, cousins and friends
As well as therapy
Of course, not always am I happy
But I am healing for sure
This experience having ensured
That I am working harder than ever
And allowing myself to be bored, never
I repeat, you broke my heart
However, you have made me more alert
I am now stronger than ever
And will allow myself to be cheated, never
What you did proved to be a blessing in disguise
Because, it has made me wise
And just a matter of time is it
Before my broken heart eventually heals!!
Feb 11, 2024
Feb 11, 2024 at 11:30 AM UTC
Clever minds that stretch
The many elements which live as our backdrop
Too often everyday is spoiled
By unnecessary people, gathering ammunition
For climbing invisible platforms of command
These are cast aside by simple smiles and welcomes
And it was.
Even if the task was invisible to me at first
My soul felt at home amongst these new work mates
My responsible position was underwritten
Given gravitas and a freedom to which I wasn't quite used
The time was charged with familiar but different
It was fraught but strangely healthier in paradox
The honest fight was taken with gestures of family proportion
Success had waned but the unity of 'knowing' was the strength
That continued to support that Company
In spite of the turmoil my personal facets were given air
To run and to adjust, to temper and to manage
Poor communication was completely disastrous
The confusion of three currencies
And the balance of understanding left us guessing
Never mind agreement or translation
Through all this, looking back my heart is lifted
Not by the freedom or the ability to achieve ...mostly,
It is the strength from our leader,
That calm, silver haired man
When many were distraught you kept us going
And fed us with hope and built our confidence,
Not always with the obvious
But gave us the ability to win through by believing ,
Believing in us and building back our motivation and teasing out
The raw infrastructure of our true capabilities
Never before has anyone, apart from my Mother
Believed in me as you did. To tackle the toughest of tasks
Anything that the industry, the public or our customers
Could throw at us, we dealt with it.
Sadly you could do nothing at the final demise but take the role
Of a father giving news of an aged relative sadly moved by
A force greater than yourself
I know had you the influence, the power and the funding............
You were always more than a boss Chris
Your transparent enthusiasm raised our spirits
And in times of worry I hope we lifted yours too.
I think of you often, thank you for being a friend
After we were no longer professionally connected.
I see your generous smile and your warm handshake
I can hear your laugh now
It's always a treat to catch up over a beer.
I now find you in my phone, in my photographs
But mostly in my heart for being a great bloke
You taught me so much.
Speak soon, with love, Max
Jul 26, 2018
Jul 26, 2018 at 10:01 AM UTC
He’s a spoiled rich kid
In the land of the one percent.
He feels no remorse for
Those who can’t pay their rent.
He’s popular with fools
And a bunch of toothless boozers
All the while laughing
And calling them all losers.
The favorite son of the GOP
Says nothing with specificity.
He just makes vague promises
He has no idea what his platform is.
He only knows if he stirs up hate
He will win certain delegates.
He won’t be held to the fire
Half-truths work for him just fine.
He’d prefer you not inquire.
Nobody makes him toe the line.
He is paraphrasing fascism
Like he’s the one who invented it.
It’s like Germany in 1930s
They could have easily prevented it.
The favorite son of the GOP
Says nothing with specificity.
He just makes vague promises
He has no idea what his platform is.
He only knows if he stirs up hate
He will win certain delegates.
Here’s the way to make it
Work the best for a new dictatorship.
You take the populace along
On your traveling one-man ego trip
After your party has published
Scurrilous big lies about the opposition
Then spread a lot more rumors
Which gives the voters their ammunition.
The favorite son of the GOP
Says nothing with specificity.
He just makes vague promises
He has no idea what his platform is.
He only knows if he stirs up hate
He will win certain delegates.
Mar 15, 2016
Mar 15, 2016 at 3:35 PM UTC
World was different in my sensible planet.
Imagined things, that I had never done yet
Cells of my thoughtless mind,
Took another direction to reach the destination.
Scrambled up everything with satisfaction.
Money is the need, helped them to think darker and deeper.
Losing weight and making them sharper to climb up the ladder.
So many losers were ahead,
I was one of them, once who wanted to fly;
But leaving dreams away, living in a world of lie.
Now I'm the thirsty monster moving ahead to that crown.
Storm and thunder helped my arms and ammunition to drown.
Clearing up the ladder now,
I have to run for the next period of madness.
Where I need to be the beast, full of suspense
One day that man behind me will reach here soon.
That will be the last night when I can see the ***** face of the moon.
Achievements have flown away,
Carried treasures along and asked me to leave.
Time is near when I have to sleep in the wooden grave.
Another monster is coming towards me with lots of desire
But I'll not run away this time that I had done all these years.
Bright sun is waiting for me,
Happiness of my cells and organs is going to end.
Every brick will fall down by making every visions bend.
Still I didn't run yet to those things what I wanted.
The time has come to grab the happiness, I had never attended.
Foolish people! Live with fools.
I'm going out of reach, leaving sadness for you all.
To live in my desired world, without any wall.
Mar 1, 2014
Mar 1, 2014 at 1:10 AM UTC
Went our hunting, shot a tree
Sure looked like a deer to me
It don't matter, I can't see
I'm an American Hunting Man
I like hunting, but, I'm blind
My dogs always stay behind
I can't shoot what I can't find
I'm an American Hunting Man
Three years ago I shot a moose
It looked to me just like a goose
Man, they're fast when they cut loose
I'm an American Hunting Man
Give me beer and loaded guns
I'm sure we're gonna have some fun
I dress in camo when I can
I'm an American Hunting Man
I'm an American Hunting Man
When I'm hunting my friends are fishin'
They don't like the competition
They even give me ammunition
I'm an American Hunting Man
I've hunted deer to wild turkey
Most things I make into jerkey
My vision ***** it's kind of murky
I'm an American Hunting Man
Went fishing once and snagged my ear
Flipped the boat and spilled the beer
I gave up fishing to hunt deer
I'm An American Hunting Man
Give me beer and loaded guns
I'm sure we're gonna have some fun
I dress in camo when I can
I'm an American Hunting Man
I'm an American Hunting Man
I was shooting ducks one time
I shot a truck, but that was fine
Until I found out it was mine
I'm an American Hunting Man
Give us weaponry and beer
Then get away when we are near
There's nothing more that you can fear
Than an American Hunting Man
I have the shakes and I can't see
When I shoot once I bring down three
One for real and two for free
I'm an American Hunting Man
Give me beer and loaded guns
I'm sure we're gonna have some fun
I dress in camo when I can
I'm an American Hunting Man
I'm an American Hunting Man
Mar 27, 2014
Mar 27, 2014 at 12:01 AM UTC
As the minutes drift into hours
I stare at the flowers
That died the day you left.
And they say keepers win in the war of finders,
But I'm not so sure.
Cos, the reminders
Of what used to be.
Have soured.
And I try and devour
Memories,
Spaces, faces, places
That we shared.
And I choke on some, and others slide down.
--
And I wander if I even cross your mind, my love
And do you remember the time
You said that you'd always be mine
And that forever was too short a time
For you and I.
Those lies you spun, like a spiders web,
Took place, built homes
Inside my head
And I didn't try to relocate
Because all I could do was appreciate
That someone finally cared.
And those memories that we shared,
Those faces, spaces and places
They're all so vivid.
I can smell the scent of your sweet perfume, and feel the water
Splash
When we went down that log floom
And we both held on so tight,
We were determined not to let eachother go. With all our might.
So what happened, my love?
What changed inside that beautiful frame of yours
What's the reason you began to close all of those doors
And lock me out.
Cos it's strange to be a stranger
And I don't like the danger
That comes with
Not knowing who I am, or you were.
And the uncertainty of who we were together.
Cos the forever we promised
Has been and gone, and call me crazy
But I expected to hold on to it
A little longer.
I thought we were stronger.
Your honey gold hair hung
Down over your face
As you told me about these places and spaces that we shared
Could be no more
My world crashed and burned
And fizzled out
And I found new ammunition
To tear myself apart
To pull to pieces
My damaged heart.
And once I was done
I hung the picture frame
You threw onto the floor
On a sign on the doors,
Saying keep out.
And my barriers went up
But my walls crumbled down
Tell me,
Are you around, my love?
Are you laughing and smiling
And have you moved on...
2013 ©
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 2:30 PM UTC
He was taken into custody on Friday
After he got off a bus in Marseille
That had come from Amsterdam
By way of Brussels,
According to police.
The manhunt began
After he opened fire
At the Jewish Museum
In the center of Brussels,
Killing at least 3 people,
Obviously: an anti-Semitic attack.
He was taken into custody
“As soon as he set foot in France,”
According to François Hollande,
Congratulating himself
For an efficient round up of
The usual suspects, all Jihadi
Round trippers from Syria.
He was taken into custody in a mere 6 days--
A magnifique display of French efficiency,
A sublime achievement by
Our furry friends in
Police-Protective Services.
The swarthy perp was carrying a Kalashnikov--
That’s AK-47 for you NRA gun nuts--
A handgun, ammunition, a baseball cap,
A small video recording device, and a
Copy of The Koran,
All items matching
Descriptions of the gunman,
And, even if not, a known-terrorist
Named Mahdi bin Laden,
Carrying an assault rifle
Would have been enough
To fit the profile,
Justify the profiling,
Sufficient to stop anyone
Passing through Customs,
Except, of course
The French Corps Diplomatique,
Wreaking most of the havoc in the EU these days.
There was once a time when any Thom, Dieter or Heine
Could get outta town on a ratline,
Blessed by the Pope,
Assisted by the OSS.
A white linen suit and a Panama hat:
Was all it took any Schutzstaffel
To pull off another Argentine makeover,
Melt into the landscape,
Speaking Spanish with a thick German brogue.
It’s nice to know
Jew persecution is criminal,
Socially frowned on these days.
Jun 1, 2014
Jun 1, 2014 at 5:59 PM UTC
To trust is to give yourself wholly to someone
You have no secrets
You have no wall in which you hide behind and cry
You have nothing to protect yourself from the times when your guards down
Your defenseless if they want to hurt you
You are weak if you trust some say
You let yourself open to someone
Which sometimes makes it hard to be brave
Why would you let this person into yourself?
Welcome them with open arms
Why let them have ammunition to hurt you with?
It's like you have given them a loaded gun
Why would you let them have that much power over you?
That is stupid
So stupid but humans are stupid
They let themselves trust
Let their love for another bring them to their knees
I was stupid enough to trust
That person let me down
Now I know that trust is stupid
I'm stupid for loving again
For letting my hopes get up
Because they always crash and burn
And it takes years for me to pick up all the tiny pieces of my heart
I know now I can't trust
I just can't anymore
Everyone in the world find it impossible to not hurt each other
To take the trust & break it
To exploit the trust that was bestowed to them
To hurt
Because that's
What people do
That's why I can't trust
Not anymore
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 10:16 AM UTC
after some grey days
comes the sun
summer heat
spectacle on the Seine
to commemorate
"La Route de l'Armada"
a fleet for tourists
that never was
yet nice to watch
nevertheless
with fireworks
& stately masts
sails folded orderly
decks scrubbed
the crews all smiles
ready to answer
all the children's questions
in between
gray & inaccessible
some men-of-war
of more contemporary make
among them
somewhat tarnished
one single ship
that really carried
allied soldiers
in its sightless hull
on that gray morning
and suddenly
if only for a moment
you smell the sweat
of fearful courage
hear ammunition
click into magazines
the waves break dull
with hollow sound
amidst the crashes
of firework artillery
that splits the waters
upward from the ground
Mar 11, 2015
Mar 11, 2015 at 7:27 PM UTC
I
Happy are men who yet before they are killed
Can let their veins run cold.
Whom no compassion fleers
Or makes their feet
Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers.
The front line withers.
But they are troops who fade, not flowers,
For poets' tearful fooling:
Men, gaps for filling:
Losses, who might have fought
Longer; but no one bothers.
II
And some cease feeling
Even themselves or for themselves.
Dullness best solves
The tease and doubt of shelling,
And Chance's strange arithmetic
Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling.
They keep no check on armies' decimation.
III
Happy are these who lose imagination:
They have enough to carry with ammunition.
Their spirit drags no pack.
Their old wounds, save with cold, can not more ache.
Having seen all things red,
Their eyes are rid
Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever.
And terror's first constriction over,
Their hearts remain small-drawn.
Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle
Now long since ironed,
Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned.
IV
Happy the soldier home, with not a notion
How somewhere, every dawn, some men attack,
And many sighs are drained.
Happy the lad whose mind was never trained:
His days are worth forgetting more than not.
He sings along the march
Which we march taciturn, because of dusk,
The long, forlorn, relentless trend
From larger day to huger night.
V
We wise, who with a thought besmirch
Blood over all our soul,
How should we see our task
But through his blunt and lashless eyes?
Alive, he is not vital overmuch;
Dying, not mortal overmuch;
Nor sad, nor proud,
Nor curious at all.
He cannot tell
Old men's placidity from his.
VI
But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns,
That they should be as stones.
Wretched are they, and mean
With paucity that never was simplicity.
By choice they made themselves immune
To pity and whatever mourns in man
Before the last sea and the hapless stars;
Whatever mourns when many leave these shores;
Whatever shares
The eternal reciprocity of tears
2.8k
Bullet and blade
Have ended
Many a friend.
Some were warriors
Living by sword, others
Just unlucky.
No one safe from
Anything. I buy her
Pepperspray instead of
Flowers these days.
Keep leaving
Butterfly knives in the
Pockets of her coats.
I am a man of non-violence,
But one with worlds to lose.
I miss the days when the fight
Ended as ground was hit.
Knuckles and bones were
All we needed; men fencing
For themselves with nothing
But themselves,
And women were there to be
Charmed and fought over. Not
Left torn and terrified
In a ditch, broken beyond repair,
Their men helplessly wielding
Lead and steel at the absence
Of the animal responsible.
I'll buy her flowers today.
Flowers, and walk her home.
Bullet and blade
Have ended
Many a friend.
The weight of their
Tragedies is about the
Same
As that of the crates of ammunition
It takes to keep the world
Safe from the threat of itself.
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 10:30 AM UTC
why is it that i forgive so easily?
why do i always weigh intentions instead of faulting stupidity
when stupidity, that fickle fool
caused us such grave heartache
and for what
why is it that i forgive so easily?
and risk my feather heart
exposed
a brothel for sentiment
care murdered and never returned
screaming out to be ****** over
by another
time
after
time
why is it that i forgive so easily?
and allow anger to fade
lay waiting for recognition
discard all ammunition
and tell myself once more
that it is all worth it
Sep 7, 2014
Sep 7, 2014 at 4:08 PM UTC