"argonne" poems
Here, and over here -
The fortunate sons
Those who made it home
To fields and hills of native tongue
In the soil their people toiled
- They listen quietly when we come
There, and over there -
Beneath crossed lines too many
Still - they man the trenches
Along the Marne and Somme
Below the woods of Belleau
And the forest of Argonne
No sonnets in a foreign language
Rendered where they languish -
The distant rest far and away
In a cold November grave
We should remember
Here and there
The old lie -
And the young.
r ~ 11/11/14
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 12:34 AM UTC
A basketball playing professor of law
Took advantage of an opportunity he saw
He ran as a Hyde Park resident
And became our celebrated president.
Hyde Park the home of Argonne lab and the U of C
Fathered many Nobel Prize winners and nominees to be
More than Harvard, they cared not it would seem
They claimed to have a better football team.
I'll have to renew my loaner card
Obama placed his library in our backyard
His presidential record there for all to see
What a waste, says Donald Trump
He doesn't mention me.
Jul 2, 2017
Jul 2, 2017 at 1:17 PM UTC
Charred remains, of jungle burned:
Fire steeped, laotian leaves.
Who we lost, in what we earned;
For the love of ******
Of sweet release.
Korean craters, Mexican invaders, &
The Boxer rebellion.
The sinking of Maine, the panamanian strait;
Meuse–Argonne, inherent freedom
Is there a place, for the peaceable to congregate?
Versailles, Geneva, Nuremberg, Tokyo.
What point to rules are made,
When no one follows them.
Bagram, Mai Lai, Tiananmen, the Chechen genocide
Is it merely in our nature;
To fight, and argue, divide?
We can conquer, but can we conquer
The lust that is
The love of tribe
Jun 21, 2023
Jun 21, 2023 at 6:43 PM UTC
Il se dressait dans la verdure,
Telle une hampe pour les cieux.
C'était un séquoia géant
Venu des prairies d’Amérique
Et des forêts Algonquines.
Il avait voyagé en cale,
Soigné comme un voyageur,
Argenté, durant toute la traversée.
Il fut planté mais aussi fêté
En l’an mille huit cent quatre-vingt
Dans le parc du futur Casino,
Puis soigné par des jardiniers
Amoureux de leur métier.
En ces années s’affermissait enfin
La République, certes bien trop conservatrice,
Elle l’est d’ailleurs bien restée.
C’était quand même la République
Même à Luchon qui étincelait encore
Des feux et des ors de la fête impériale
Qui lui avait amenés
Tant de touristes au gousset rembourré
Et quand s’affermissait cette République
En cette «belle époque» des fortunés
Et d'exploitation éhontée
De tant d’autres laissés bien seuls
Par la naissance et sans instruction.
Mes aïeux Pyrénéens
Le virent planter et même pousser
Car en ces temps, encore,
Les sages et les doux prenaient plaisir
À observer et contempler
Les belles Dames en leur vêture
Et les arbres pousser peu à peu,
Jusqu’un jour à feindre de dépasser
La cime des ardoises Pyrénéennes.
Ce fut un Séquoia somptueux
Dès qu’il atteint ses vingt ans
En cette année dix-neuf cent
Alors que la compagnie du Midi
Faisait construire, non **** de lui
Le bel hôtel palace qui fut fini
En 1916, j’en ais la gorge serrée
Car la bas, tant de maçons
Ne le virent jamais construit
Et n’eurent pas le bonheur
D’admirer le grand Séquoia pousser
Car leur jeunesse fut ravie
Là-bas en Argonne ou à Verdun
Où tant de jeunes hommes mourraient
Dans les tranchées de leur dernier souffle.
Paul Arrighi
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 1:16 PM UTC
A bitcoin that took
his lure to speck
then caught his poison
and stroked the lawn
with that argy bargy
he finely did roast his town
with jest
his infinite sequence
there in a raffling wager
that pleased his mother's wish
with his audacity sooner
than they'd think again
in Argonne today.
May 6, 2017
May 6, 2017 at 7:30 AM UTC
My heart was full of joy that night; I’d just received good news:
I’d learned that my request for flight training had been approved.
That night was warm and the sweet scent of flowers filled the air.
As we sat in the Bloch arena, Navy bands for battle did prepare.
Bands from the Tennessee, the Pennsylvania and the Argonne played.
and no one in that audience gave a thought to an air raid.
Pearl Harbor was too shallow for torpedo planes to strike.
Or so we had been told and did believe till morning’s light
I’d had an ice cold beer (or two) to celebrate my good news.
My shipmates from Arizona sat beside me in the pews.
Our ship’s band was believed to be the finest in the fleet.
The surviving band tonight would be the foe they had to beat.
The golden sun had long since set in the Pacific sea.
Perhaps that was a harbinger of what was yet to be.
In just a few short hours hence did hell on earth arrive.
Though I was thrown from the burning deck, no band members survived.
The Arizona sank so fast; Eleven hundred died.
I watched from the oil-slicked water as their second wave arrived.
This was the day of infamy that entered into lore.
The last sweet strains of peace had been played the night before.
May 27, 2019
May 27, 2019 at 10:57 AM UTC