"bayonets" poems
Underneath the leaves of life,
Green on the prodigious tree,
In a trance of grief
Stand the fallen man and wife:
Far away the single stag
Banished to a lonely crag
Gazes placid out to sea,
And from thickets round about
Breeding animals look in
On Duality,
And the birds fly in and out
Of the world of man.
Down in order from the ridge,
Bayonets glittering in the sun,
Soldiers who will judge
Wind towards the little bridge:
Even politicians speak
Truths of value to the weak,
Necessary acts are done
By the ill and the unjust;
But the Judgment and the Smile,
Though these two-in-one
See creation as they must,
None shall reconcile.
Bordering our middle earth
Kingdoms of the Short and Tall,
Rivals for our faith,
Stir up envy from our birth:
So the giant who storms the sky
In an angry wish to die
Wakes the hero in us all,
While the tiny with their power
To divide and hide and flee,
When our fortunes fall
Tempt to a belief in our
Immortality.
Lovers running each to each
Feel such timid dreams catch fire
Blazing as they touch,
Learn what love alone can teach:
Happy on a tousled bed
Praise Blake's acumen who said:
"One thing only we require
Of each other; we must see
In another's lineaments
Gratified desire";
This is our humanity;
Nothing else contents.
Nowhere else could I have known
Than, beloved, in your eyes
What we have to learn,
That we love ourselves alone:
All our terrors burned away
We can learn at last to say:
"All our knowledge comes to this,
That existence is enough,
That in savage solitude
Or the play of love
Every living creature is
Woman, Man, and Child."
5.9k
Skinny *** Poem
(8/11/2014)
Every kid wants to be something when they grow up.
They picture perfect future families with puppies and kittens,
but for me something was missing.
I just wanted to be happy.
Maybe my vision wasn't so great though,
because 'happy' looked like it had 6 letters to me, and spelled 'skinny.'
People used to throw bricks at my glass house.
Shouting that I’d be skinny enough to slip through cracks.
Cracks of life,
cracks of struggle and strife,
cracks of everything not nice.
They'd tease me and say I looked like I smoked crack,
when I'd lose weight,
I'd gain it all back,
in the form of their extra hate.
But I didn't feel skinny on the inside.
Although I had skinny bones and skinny skin,
brittle enough to break within.
Under the pain of that pang
as their bricks shattered my glass house.
Tell me, have you ever been afraid of words?
Thoughts can be terrifying but once turned to spoken word,
that in turn will turn to shouted word,
that in turn will turn to incoherent nonsense.
Which starts a sensation of ear drums ripping,
being sawed in half immediately,
no time spent ticking,
by shrill shrieks and violent vocalizations.
As if a sound wave could burst your body parts faster,
no, more efficiently than a barrage of fists.
Because it will know exactly where to strike,
in fact, it will sneak through your solid surface,
into every single crevice,
knowing where the best place to hurt is.
All it takes is a whisper strategically said in your ear,
'skinny.' 'skinny.' 'skinny.'
I could feel it float away from me,
carried off by the wind.
As if a sound wave could carry an army of statements,
piled up and armed with bayonets of every decibel level,
ready and willing to siege each individual joint crack and muscle ache,
being pushed under imposed stiffness.
It will ooze out your pores, as if your fat face was an instrument amplifier.
They thrived on the thrill listening to my shrill shriek.
As I stepped on shards from my shattered glass house,
And stared into the million fractures,
each a broken reflection of the million me’s I could be.
But none of them skinny... enough,
skinny for everybody else,
but never for me.
I’d envision each day, blood drops staining my glass carpet.
Each ounce of that luscious red,
each day left my body filled with an ounce less of dread.
An ounce less to fit into a size small shirt,
and 30 inch waist Skinny jean.
My body became my own private ****** machine.
Every kid wants to be something when they grow up.
I just wanted to be happy, I mean skinny.
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 5:07 AM UTC
Through grain fields with bayonets fixed,
from Belleau Woods the Germans came.
The sixth Marines in shallow pits
unleashed a deadly metal rain.
The French collapsed upon the left
Their flank exposed by craven fear
The Marines held fast when urged to flee:
"Retreat?, Monsieur? We just got here."
By June the sixth, it fell to them
to take a Hill to save the French.
A German company with machine guns
waited for them, well entrenched.
Their tactics from another war,
Audacious yes, but not too clever
"Come on, you ******** Dan Daly roared,
"Do you really want to live forever?"
With casualties high, so many dead
The Marine Corps held the hill by night.
Counter attacks were fended off
some times with fists and K bar knife.
Now the cannon of both sides
rained steel where the combatants stood:
A once beautiful preserve of princes
was turned into a shattered wood.
Through mustard gas and cannon fire
The Marines advanced into the Wood.
Silenced machine guns and cut bared wire
till the enemy fled, this time for good.
Before the flag at Iwo flew,
Before the Canal's jungle squalor
Marines were nicknamed "Devil Dogs"
by the Germans who admired valor.
Jan 14, 2012
Jan 14, 2012 at 3:37 PM UTC
he's someone’s grandson
his body bag just like the others
viewed from the outside
inside with him
are stories, waiting to be told
over, over again by the mothers,
the mothers' mothers
who imagine they keep him
from the ground with their telling:
bassinets, bicycles, back seats with girls
finally bayonets with the boys
some of them
his buddies, beside him now
with their stories, waiting
to be told
Nov 23, 2015
Nov 23, 2015 at 8:29 PM UTC
'O Jesus Christ! I'm hit,' he said; and died.
Whether he vainly cursed, or prayed indeed,
The Bullets chirped - In vain! vain! vain!
Machine-guns chuckled, - Tut-tut! Tut-tut!
And the Big Gun guffawed.
Another sighed, - 'O Mother, mother! Dad!'
Then smiled, at nothing, childlike, being dead.
And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud
Leisurely gestured, - Fool!
And the falling splinters tittered.
'My Love!' one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood,
Till, slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud.
And the Bayonets' long teeth grinned;
Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned;
And the Gas hissed.
3.5k
Staring with the spider
into semantic oubliettes
The cats have all gone mad
The hounds growl at shadows
The guards in the tower
hone their bayonets
The night is red
The shroud of crow
follow my car
past sleeping windows
then lift like one
legendary rook
The snow falls in my headlamps
and my mind is a cemetery
Dec 9, 2011
Dec 9, 2011 at 6:20 AM UTC
it became a perpetual motion
a dance
someone hands the card, another lights
the amount of aching discolored grazed fingers was immense
put your finger on the flint wheel
press it down
karen thought we should make a sign
the scrambles of bruised fingers for a piece of cardboard
my fingers throbbed as i scratched our message on the board
i kept the pink flower locked in the crease of my hand
and threw them in air
“draft card burning here”
it was 7 00 in the morning
october 21 1967
i was only 17
my brother jeffrey was flying a plane over dien bien phu
a friend richard was screaming in the trenches of xuan loc
a lover michael treading through a swamp in mui bai ****
i stepped up to The Police.
The. Men. In. Suits. Stared. At. Me
Blank. Faces. And. No. Expression.
I picked up my Pink Daisy, and brought it up to their bayonets
this is for Jeffrey, for Richard, and for Michael
the men in suits stared at me
in a world of chaos and confusion
all I heard was
Silence.
Oct 22, 2014
Oct 22, 2014 at 2:09 PM UTC
In Silence
The English ex SAS Special Forces member went to the Ukraine to fight. He travelled light and took just a small back pack and a head full of skills. A gun was a gun and a bayonet a bayonet. He was trained to use most things as weapon especially military articles.
He decided to go to the Ukraine after the Russians invaded proper in early 2022. The Ukrainian Army took him to a holding facility where they vetted him. This took three days. Included was basic close combat skills and weapons use.
He excelled and was given a job, being sent to a forward artillery position with a dozen other foreign troops to protect it. The SAS man was in charge and most men and the single girl spoke English. All understood military commands and signals. All were veterans from either conscript or professional armies.
Each was here for their own reasons and all disliked either what Russia had done or Russians themselves. The English SAS member had killed several Muslim terrorists from Daesh and al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now he looked forward to fighting and killing some Russians, officers if possible. After being in the Ukraine six days he was on the front line leading his first patrol. This was better than being a bouncer in a Manchester night club!
The SAS guy ordered his men to only use bayonets as they silently crept to a Russian fox hole a mile away. He wanted blood and the rush of combat, of killing. There was the trench and a single sentry, asleep. He would knife him himself. Then his squad would ****** the rest and take back any weapons, maps or documents. He spoke four languages including Russian. Any Intel was good for his bosses though. Here we go! There’s the sleeping sentry. Gently now, he must die in silence…
Mar 20, 2022
Mar 20, 2022 at 5:33 PM UTC
'Talk of pluck!' pursued the Sailor,
Set at euchre on his elbow,
'I was on the wharf at Charleston,
Just ashore from off the runner.
'It was grey and ***** weather,
And I heard a drum go rolling,
Rub-a-dubbing in the distance,
Awful dour-like and defiant.
'In and out among the cotton,
Mud, and chains, and stores, and anchors,
Tramped a squad of battered scarecrows--
Poor old Dixie's bottom dollar!
'Some had shoes, but all had rifles,
Them that wasn't bald was beardless,
And the drum was rolling Dixie,
And they stepped to it like men, sir!
'Rags and tatters, belts and bayonets,
On they swung, the drum a-rolling,
Mum and sour. It looked like fighting,
And they meant it too, by thunder!'
2.4k
We celebrate Juneteenth as if the war was not still being fought
Across news stations and echoes of Jefferson's dreams
The last slaves freed, but this country was never
Reconstructed, just patched up just replaced
Chains with debt, a Theseus ship of spoils pulled
From the wreckage of **** And I sit the echoes
of police sirens slung like clubs across the backs of the
Boys that sat in my classroom and wondered
Why every white person they met always had
To yell so much. As if there was nothing at all
to be exchanged besides recreating Hegel’s dialectic.
As if the only way to win was in blood. And perhaps
That is what Juneteenth really teaches us, that blood
Shed long enough will lead to ghosts, whispered
Warnings we ignore. As if a million bodies buried across
The South was not enough of a reminder that we needed
To **** to have the enslaved seen as people. We celebrate the
Day we no longer had to bury bayonets in bodies
To treat humans as humans. And they still can't see it.
Don’t realize that if you take away the last plate of food,
That if you turn off the power, that if the dollar can't fill the tank
What comes from desperation is a blood-born tsunami
full of the ghosts of dead racists and stolen children,
full of collateral damage and crackheads hooked on crystal
Sold to them by the CIA.
This country cannot swallow the blood needed to clear its cup.
But at least we gonna barbeque and vote, and Dream, and read.
At least we gonna explain to the children that this was the day
The last slaves were freed when there are still hungry mouths to feed.
At least we gonna sit with Baldwin, or Miles, or Kendrick, and unhinge
Our throats like snakes swallowing what the storms sing from suffering.
At least we can carry that truth. If only for a day. If only to free the last
Mind slaves still believing that the war is over, the dead silent,
The constitution holy, the senate fair, the president controls gas prices,
The bullet not already loaded, the school doors not already locked,
The rich earned it, the news aint propaganda, the children martyrs
The blood in our bodies not singing requiems to the pain of our ancestors,
At least we gonna pretend that this country actually free.
Jun 17, 2022
Jun 17, 2022 at 5:48 AM UTC
Aluminum foil teeth
Enamel taste bud bayonets
Molars initiate waging war
On the soft pink left cheek
Gnawing away radiated flesh
Sawing off fat
Eating through layers of rotten blood
These
Metal dentures cut gums
Tonguing out iron spit
Oct 24, 2015
Oct 24, 2015 at 2:36 PM UTC
Antsy aardvarks all
accept ants accordingly
as an addiction
Bamboo bayonets
bought by barbaric, beastly
barons bite beatniks
Cloistered cobblers can
color candy-cane conches
concealing crooners
Daffodils doodle
daydreams down, debauchery
demons deafening
Every eon each
electric elephant eats
eleven elk eggs
For fun fantasies
file films filosophic'ly
filling filaments
Go get greens
Get grass grayer gal
goonie ghoul
Hello high hammock
how hooligans heave haddocks
heathenly hecklers
Igloos ixist in
icy islands interning
internationally
Jello jam jizzy
Jacks jostling jewels juney
jump jump joop jail
Dec 27, 2009
Dec 27, 2009 at 9:11 PM UTC
Take a moment to stop and stare,
At memorials in your town,
The named names that never came home,
Some had died at The Somme,
No shouts no shots no whistles,
No guns no bangs no shells,
No barbed wire or trenches,
And no gun powder smells,
All is very quite now,
After one hundred years,
Unlike the time the dead were named,
When families shed their tears,
No khaki uniforms no tin hats,
No bayonets to stab a heart,
No body parts no blood no gore,
No grenades to blow you apart,
Silently remembering,
Their memory lingers on,
They fought for King and country,
And died there at The Somme.
Jul 1, 2016
Jul 1, 2016 at 7:58 AM UTC
"BUG"
I saw a Bug Battle,
in the cracks of the street Blood and Struggle
Their plastic screams and cellophane curses were almost like yours and mine.
Until a brave one crawled to my ear,
and he told me of his trial in the street crack theater,
I grinned as if I cared, he smiled like he had the time
He said "in whose camp does your banner fly, and can I have you on my side?"
He loaded a Pistol while I replied:
I said: I'm anti-pro no shout catechist, so keep your pamphlets political activist,
You take your cause for lack of a purpose in life,
pursuit of happiness, "eudemonia" good spiritedness
you're living proof that ignorance aint bliss
Pray "Libira nos a malo!" and Free Tibet!
But you never prayed for the souls with affixed Bayonets;
so I wave like the man being shot from the cannon;
born on this chunk of warm rock hurling through nothing;
who only on the front of spirit can fight;
Storm the Bastille of desperate life;
and dance in the street every night till the day I die.
The Bug Replied:
Know All, Know all, in the dialog to win,
two grants are a Franklyn one Lincoln's just a fin?
Posit value for this bug since you're so well balanced,
gaining perspective from the outermost valence;
you never killed what you eat and confuse "labor with action,"
but you think you're to evolved to fight for my faction;
We're currency baby as we live and breed,
BASTILLE for you ATTICA for me!
better get in the frae my anti anti teacher
before it ***** you along with every other fighting creature;
I'm going back to me cell where I breathe a little freer;
but let me give a final though like I'm Jerry Springer:
If happiness is purpose than you can call my purpose love,
to survive I fight the Battle and to me you're the bug.
Thunderstruck, I sat on the curb,
realizing I could be a "social surd;"
then I saw my small confessor get killed in a raid;
I would have stomped out his assassin if I wasn't so afraid;
instead I rose to my feet, and walked straight home,
locked myself in, and wrote out this song,
I think of the bug while I'm dancing in the street,
every time my neighbor throughs a sneaker at me;
I feel his wrestles spirit longing to fight,
while I'm drinking and singing in the middle of the night,
than it hits me:
The bug was right
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 9:04 PM UTC
A famous "Barry Hodges" poem!
I was strolling along the Normandy beaches
In the close vicinity of Caen one day
With a very tasty piece of arm-candy to hand
When I found a bleached human femur on the beach.
Oh dear me, what thoughts this conjured up in my brain
As I imagined whose bone it might have been!
Perhaps some pathetic soldier boy landing in forty-four
Who got slotted by a gallant German gunner,
His eyes feasting on the sacrificial cannon fodder
So foolishly supplied for his target practice.
Then, as I grabbed my lady friend's juicy ****
Causing her to turn and sink her tongue into my earhole,
We sank onto the sands in order to sate our lusts,
(enflamed by a very delicious meal of moules marinières
and a bucket or two of well-chilled Muscadet sur Lie)
I thought, what the **** does it all matter?
This is now, and that was then, and this old world
Has become a much nicer place nowadays;
But how mistaken I was in that fond thought;
Oh what an idealist I am in a world of woe.
For, all of a sudden, a contingent of fat dwarfs appeared,
Totally naked apart from their luminous Uncle Sam hats
And the Stars and Stripes hanging from their arseholes;
How I marvelled at their disgusting shapes
(and how surprised was I to find their genitals
were of normal measurements and thus
rather intrusively large by comparison
with the rest of their miniature bodies).
O dear Lord and alleged Father of Mankind
Forgive their horrid ways verily and forsooth.
With a whoop, those demented military retards, [see note below]
The famous 118th battalion ****** Marine veterans,
A contingent of whom emerged from a portable toilet
(which must have been a bit of a tight squeeze),
Chopped my girl-friend up with their bayonets,
Whereupon I crapped myself in terror and pity,
Before retrieving the purse from the eviscerated corpse,
Realizing that her PIN number was still useable
Until 'les flics' discovered her unfortunate remains
After the shore ***** had partaken thereof.
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 8:08 AM UTC
Bravely Burn Barbaric Books of Belief Belonging to Bad Bigots to Become the Bearer of the Bright-less Broken Banners of Both and Between Bruised and Betrayed Beleaguered Borders to Begin Benevolence Before the Beings Below Be Benumbed and go Berserk for Bloodshed .
Boldly Bestow the Blessing of Brotherhood to the Blind and Brutal Blood Beasts and the Bound Brethren of Brazen Ballads.
For a Bare Bundle of Burnt Books can Barricade a Braced Battalion of Bayonets, Block Beyond Billions of Battle Blades, Buffer a Bunch of Big Booming Bullets, Backfire Boorish Ballistae of Bribery and Bury the Barmy Bastard's Baleful Brusque Breathes that Brings Back the Bedeviled Beacon of Blame.
Feb 24, 2011
Feb 24, 2011 at 8:11 AM UTC
Timelike and the decaying bodies piled high cease to amuse the vultures now
Single shots give the rebels confidence
They attack in force
Heavy machine gun fire from the west toss bodies into the air like ragdolls
Textbook
Vultures tearing at eyes of the dead and dying
Bullets to precious for mercy
The night brings natures other cleaners
Muffled screams heighten the reactions as night vision survey death in technicolor
The ponderous wait continues
Stroking metal like some *** provoking act
Followed only by counting lives little savers, bullets of love
The vultures dance impatiently
The stroking intensifies
Hairs stand ***** as movement waves majestically towards its final objective
A sudden calm unfolds
Nature watches in awe as love is unleashed in her garden for the final time
The call to bayonets now, takes man down to his lowest form of savagery
Eyes now meet, screaming death the ferocious last act of men past the point of madness
Blood flows as metal slice through skin and bone, swaying death the final frenzy as screams die the days end
Men cry as they survey the last atrocity of human barbarity
Battle ended, vultures marvel feasting on the final meal
Battle hardened men massacre memories leaving Celebrations a distant Country as blood red hands refuse to wash
They would never return.
Nov 4, 2015
Nov 4, 2015 at 6:13 AM UTC
It is strange
yet not
being back here on
the isle of my forefathers
Of I
Everything is different
yet
nothing has changed
Seagulls call and
the air smells of seaweed
There are pink flowers in baskets
and the sky is blue
That endless blue of timeless childhood summers
Here my name is not an aberration
'ueu' is an everyday tripthong
'Le' a rule not an exception
I am not an exception either
After half a century
discovery
I am one of a tribe after all
Ancestors
people I have never known
not even in name lest alone body
Reaching way back in time
Predominantly French
or of this isle
The Germans
photographed every islander
when they occupied this dot of granite
as bombs fell on Europe in a rain of death
The Occupation was a dark period of
hunger and cruelty
but thanks to these photos
I have seen my heritage
etched on faces so familiar
yet never met
I learned just now
my paternal grandfather had gunshot wounds
along his right side and arm and leg
Mementos of the Somme
of Passchedale
and Ypres
I discovered he died of
carcinoma of the lungs
like my mother
my uncle
several aunts
and my Pa
He survived four years of the Great War
water logged trenches
blood-rusty bayonets
horror and starvation
Just one of a few to come home
Military Medal pinned to his chest
5 feet tall yet battle hardy
witnessing things
doing things
no man nor woman should ever do
But Grandpa (how joyous to hear that word on my lips!)
couldn't defeat
the silent enemy
that waged its war within
All this new knowledge
somehow makes me feel older
Not in years
but in history
Tattoos of my heritage
now pattern my bones
My parents are both dead
I have no siblings
no partner
no children
but now I am
no longer alone
Jul 17, 2013
Jul 17, 2013 at 2:18 AM UTC
i was walkin across centrsl park one night when all a suddenly was 75,000 green berets charging
with bayonets flashing in the moonlight screaming "death to da hippie dog jeffrey, death to da hippie dog jeffrey!"
what chumps!
but!!!!!!
i ALMOST felt compassion for them which woulda distracted an thus kilt me
but i overcome
there was a burst a light from inside
an i continued walkin home
lettin them was responsible take it if they chose to
Jul 14, 2010
Jul 14, 2010 at 4:24 PM UTC
We tied a knot in heaven
and left it there
suspended in the air
unaware of the care that lent there
we stare, bare of emotions
for those we sent there
prematurely
surely it was god’s plan
between that ISIS and
the American man’s man
but wait
I don’t rate the
Wests lack of responsibility
they attest not to the culpability
and without an ounce of timidity
suggest that their
interactions are near
the vicinity of humility
when really Iraq
was left gutted like a
listless fish
to be added to the list
of countries
America and Britain not great
Felt the need to mend
not with gentle hands
but with the bayonets hate.
left without infrastructure
a poor suture on
a shambling wreck
Iraq limped on
to suppurate into civil war
which we condemn and abhor
but somehow haven’t the
nous to implore that we have been here before
The imperialist shadow looms like
a hound, as we espouse civility;
Irony abound.
Sep 12, 2015
Sep 12, 2015 at 7:15 PM UTC
© 2013 (By Jim Sularz)
Let me muse a bit,
below the parapet.
And bask awhile,
in the sun and grit.
That I should ****
or be killed instead?
Come my battle cry . . .
“Fix bayonets!”
. . . Dare I charge headlong,
beyond this pit?
Through War’s slaughterhouse,
past the blood and spit.
Do as I’m told,
without regret?
As I plunge over . . .
my epitaph.
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 6:41 PM UTC
I can't help but look left
while long words march valiantly into the field
before the order was given
stretching strides molding the Earth around their shoes
peeling bark
chipping marble with bayonets
shaping you and I
until paints run
mud capturing their shoes
for interrogation
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 12:13 AM UTC
You walked down Bath Terrace
having been to Jail Park
on the swings
and slide with Janice
and she had her red beret
on the side of her head
like some French girl
I nearly bayoneted
my old man last night
you said
I had my toy rifle
he brought me
with the rubber bayonet
and I was charging out
of the sitting room
into the passage
and caught him
in the guts
as he entered the room
what you doing?
he asked
I was bayoneting Germans I told him
I’m not German he said
I’m your father
and he stormed off
into the sitting room
to his favourite chair
by the fire
and I stood there thinking
it’s only a toy gun
and I was only having fun
Janice looked at you
and said
if I’d done that
to Gran she’d have spanked
my backside
but you wouldn’t
have had a rifle
with a rubber bayonet
you said
girls don’t have rifles
with bayonets
I might have done
she said
ok
you said
you can borrow mine
and see what happens
no thanks
Janice said
I know what would happen
you climbed over
the metal fence
by Banks House
and sat on the concrete remains
of the bomb shelter
looking toward the coalwarf
where coal wagons
were being loaded
with black sacks of coal
and the horses stood there
in front patiently
eating from nosebags
Janice was sitting pretty
in her red beret
her hair tied
in a ponytail
her coat buttoned up
to the neck
talking about her gran
and the pet bird
in the cage
and you listened
to her taking in
her hands on her knees
her small fingers
not the kind
to hold a rifle
with a rubber bayonet
more the kind
to hold a baby
or rock a cradle
or stroke brow
you wanted to ask her
for a cowgirl’s kiss
but didn’t know how.
Apr 10, 2013
Apr 10, 2013 at 3:26 PM UTC
Five Hundred miles deep
where the work has just begun
the sweaty backs of Chinamen
reflect the high noon sun
Their hammers strike the iron stakes
with a sharp resounding ring
and they murmur ancient melodies
to the rhythm of their swing
a hundred miles deeper
in an oaken-wooded glen
rusty-bearded lumberjacks
take up the axe again
every man together
brings the forest to its knees
and grumbles songs of yesteryear
to the beat of falling trees
deeper still, the boys in blue
staying true to form,
pointing with their bayonets
upon the village swarm
they spill the purest blood
over sacred ground
their muskets singing fiery death
with that wicked, wicked sound.
Aug 13, 2015
Aug 13, 2015 at 12:03 AM UTC