"cadets" poems
~and for Harlan, who loved this one best~
*"for tandem is the ever-changing, graying color of their fierce attached tenacity"
waking/walking in
careful pacing regular lock steps,
like new cadets, counting cadence,
in perfect silent, almost motionless,
except for the minuscule quivering of
slightly parted moving lips
these two elders,
still now plebes,
freshmen
but of a latter, graduated stage,
demonstrating robustly
the slow shuffle-along,
a well practiced dance conjured
'in tandem'
her arm, crooked in his,
his other hand,
in protective custody of a
knight's armored chain glove
encasing hers,
he, shuffling just,
a precise, intended half-a-beat slower
lest she ever think
that she, ever be a drag upon him
hair, his,
threaded with daily,
new arriving grays,
proudly accepted
as the privilege of
graceful aging
hers,
disguised with periodic outings,
outings for the hidings of life's bookmarks,
conceding nothing ever to
time's lunatic desire to separate them
modest in dress,
styling hints of pasts' elegant,
the man's hat defiant,
daringly jaunty angled,
a small scarf to handbag knotted,
matching his Windsor knotted tie
the passers-by, all smile,
the signal charm of an
end game processional,
thinking so sweet,
yet mine eyes detect more,
something
hardy and radical
a fierce, fierce fierceness,
both fighters in the resistance,
armed with tandem tenacity,
ground given,
but only inches surrendered,
wounds resisted by
scar skin toughened
by the caress of ions bonding
under the pressure
of atomic level mutuality
worn out,
well past Purple Hearts,
no capitulation feared,
to the ever changing,
enemies' new disguises,
they,
a two person platoon,
each,
having the other's back
and I burst into tears on the street,
a train of out loud moans,
even groans emitted,
like a string of perfect pearls
breaking,
clattering on an asphalt terrain
weeping
not
from visions of the inevitable,
sighing
not
from the certitude of a
cycle's uptime ending*
but jealous furious by this reminder delightful,
angry at myself, for having lost so many wasted years,
mine, the loss greatest, for absent was the
fierce tenacity of tandem
Mar 6, 2017
Mar 6, 2017 at 8:41 PM UTC
I am victim only to constant distractions,
restrictions, prescriptions, vicarious factors,
as various factions of elitism prescribe defeat
to the common man; the hard working talented
beaten upon by the self driven commerce land.
Businessmen, crooks, warlords and bankers;
victory purports itself the higher moral ground.
******* the world, lie on the crimson sand.
The brevity of riches in led laden ditches,
trenches v armistice; one man’s control over
cadets and lieutenants. Equality it seems
is general ignorance, propose roll reversal
and receive corporal punishment. Capital
interests will be met with bursaries, bail
out the banks and return to your knees,
put out your hands and beg for your feed.
If the top three percent own more wealth
than the lower half put together while
politicians claim to be fair-weather,
conclude that sincerities amiss, that
your representatives are on the pay roll
of profit driven lobbyists. Career crazed fat-cats
couldn’t care less if you're in tattered garments
or there’s a hole in your dress, their polished
boots carry them from vault to vault
while we fill another with oil-baron asphalt.
As social repression pushes populations
science progresses, enabling armed forces
to kettle us, cut us off and circle on horses.
Power-shifts across the globe become jaded
by investment with private militias and fascist
supremacists seizing resources from war
torn villages to fund their crude sourced
morality, migrants and refugee families
are vilified by ignorance forged in cynicism
caused by the inequality of education.
Here lie the symptoms of infinite regression,
hold mirror to gene-pool as it replicates
the same flawed equation, as populations
expire and conspire so does the problem.
Bombing a country without repercussions,
is as likely as a breaking the waters surface
without sending ripples to the adjacent atoms.
These are the dark ages of social stagnation.
Oct 22, 2014
Oct 22, 2014 at 11:00 AM UTC
The best way to forget the truth is to celebrate the lie
Poppies poppies poppies POPPIES and a big brass band
sea cadets in my home town forty miles inland.
Please dont be swayed to get your feet wet dont be fodder for a war
And you will if you forget.
My mates grandads wife never got his war pension
he got shot on the wrong day
I think there was an R in the month or was it a why (Y)
there's a statue on top of our cenotaph the Angel of the Somme
thee sea cadets parade around it tiddley um pum pum
Tiddley um pum pum
Pum pum pupum
The best way to forget the truth is to forget the lie.
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 6:24 AM UTC
X-rays of the soul,
Madame Chan proclaims,
translucent we stand,
visible out and inside
before our creator,
but only to that
limitable being
if only there were a machine such,
on earth, as in heaven
perhaps seventeen Frenchman,
one hundred and forty five,
mostly Pakistani children,
or thirty five
no longer alive,
just barely mentioned,
already forgotten,
Yemeni young
police cadets,
two NYPD,
might still be adjudged
innocent by those
who only see themselves in mirrors,
blindly believing
they are created
in the image of
God
and knowledgeable in the
execution of
his will
if human Justice is thus blinded,
perhaps God is too?
we need much betters cameras...
more accurate selfies...
Jan 10, 2015
Jan 10, 2015 at 3:15 PM UTC
NJROTC is the one thing that made me feel confident in who I was, now it is gone. There will be no ROTC next year, most people don’t care, but the people who worked their butts off are hurting. We work all year round, constantly training and bettering ourselves. The funny thing about all of this is the fact that we all new it was coming, we just didn’t know how soon. People don’t care and I don’t expect them to but I hope people realize that having that program changed the school for the better and the cadets in it.
We weren’t perfect we had our days where we just wanted to give up. We have had rocks thrown at us, yet we stood firm. We have been made fun of and still are but that never once took an ounce of pride from our hearts. I will not be here I graduate in May, so people wonder why I am so upset. I am upset because I have personally worked with every cadet who wanted to be something, I have been there when we won first place titles, I have been there for the most hilarious fails, I have been there for the biggest wins in the smallest ways. Regardless of when or where I have been there! I have seen them at there best and worst, I have given pep talks at meets that have changed the outcome within the blink of an eye. You can’t understand what it is like to be in a program like this if you aren’t in it.
In the eyes of the Juniors everything they have worked for for three years have just been ripped from their hands, they don’t know how to handle something like this, neither do I. ROTC made these kids who they are, it has shaped me into the strong, confident and intelligent woman I am. How do I look them straight into the eyes and tell them it is gonna be okay when I myself don’t even believe that? I will walk out of high school with only one regret, that I didn’t prepare them properly for this hit. I have lead and prepared them for everything but this, could it be true? Is this it? It is………..
Mar 2, 2017
Mar 2, 2017 at 3:16 PM UTC
After the painting by Fritz Von Uhde (1848 – 1911)
Sophie is twelve
Hanna thirteen
dear pinafored girls both
home from school
this summer afternoon
they sit knee to knee
but far enough away
from mothers’ chatter
at tea on the terrace.
The girls have gossip of their own
to share and talk is ten
to the dozen (and more)
whilst Hanna turns the pages
of a story book (with pictures):
a woodcutter’s daughter
a handsome young squire
ensnared with love
by a magiced white owl
there’s a castle by a lake
an endless forest dark
a mountainous domain
so far away so long ago.
Poised in the doorway
of their teenaged years
our girls imagine
the courteous attentions
of uniformed cadets
who one day soon
may very well sit
at the garden table
in the dappled shade
and silently gaze with longing
on their oh so delicate charms.
Feb 1, 2013
Feb 1, 2013 at 1:15 AM UTC
Cell phone shield in hand,
the mirror-me peers
into a shoddy, cracked up
dream reflector-slash-protector
as I make amends with
my agitated mitochondria and
attempt to drill miniscule holes into
paper dolls without ripping them.
So screams the wall hanging!
Banshees dance, falling
into cyclical romances as
cream colored microphones peek
out around one-way windows wondering
whether or not the smiles will hold.
Eyes still,
eyes wrinkles crinkling,
spit spray sprinkling.
Connect to the dreamers.
Push your plug into
my cracking wall sockets,
pull me apart at the seams.
So cries the doorstopper!
Knees bleed from
street corner séances
and eyes green grass
that's afraid to ask
where its clover went
but heavens, it's bent for hell.
Pray tell me, burping chickadee,
when did your teeth glass over
with a film of cerulean and
your bones start sailing
through tepid reminders that
you may end this life a failure,
swallowing Uncle Ben's rice packet trash
at the dark black bottom of the Pacific?
So sighs the statue!
Broken walkie talkies
feed red back to nothing
and knick knack hoarders note
the familiar festering of deadly bacteria
in the lungs and on the
tippy top of the tongue.
Space cadets rocket
through concrete jungles containing
apartment after
apartment after
apartment filled with
mannequins filled with
sand filled with
unevenly severed hands.
So speaks the ornament!
So declares the dashboard decal!
Sensual scholarly seekers
seem so totally hip
and read feminist poetry
to dispel the myths
and spit on the irony.
I won't dare to flatter you
with the focused attention of stone
or allow the personable picture frame
to make the secrets of
the microscopic universe known.
So suggests the ship siren!
So recites the repository!
Empty yourself into me,
adopt a new philosophy,
abandon in within two weeks
so I can see and you can seep,
your fluttering robin heart to keep
and glaciers to arrive upon
a salty brown eternal sleep.
Deliver me to the melting shopping mall!
The centennial fire alarm goes off
at the tip of the cliff,
at the end of the hall.
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 3:28 PM UTC
Hey West Point Cadets
A message to you
Use your head
Think before you act
Wise people have said
Swinging pillows stuffed with rocks
Now some lay injured in hospital beds
Sep 5, 2015
Sep 5, 2015 at 11:42 AM UTC
When I found out
about your little game.
I laughed.
First in anger,
then in spite.
It was so very petty after all.
Your big persona
clothed in a bespangled mantle
of hypocrisy and loyalty
came apart
just like you did
when things began to crack.
Your hands
capable of spinning rifles
and commanding cadets
failed to handle me
in all my complexities.
I do not fault you for that
after all it takes a strong man
to be with a strong woman
but i do fault you
for the veiled hypocrisy
you showed at every turn.
You questioned my loyalty
insinuated at flirtations
flaunted your jealousy
Yet behind my back
all the while
showed honeyed intentions
to the girls in your tracks.
You gave me up
like an unhousebroken puppy,
that had bitten
your tremendous ego.
Citing your love for me
and your good intentions
while all you wished for
was to roam free.
When I figured out your little game
I laughed
first in anger,
then in spite.
But now,
when I think of your game,
I do neither
because the games of small men
no longer interest me,
and neither do you.
Apr 6, 2015
Apr 6, 2015 at 12:56 AM UTC
I knew him because he was there...sometimes
in the morning drinking one of his sixteen cups
of coffee before I would go to school.
I knew him cause we would go camping sometimes
and the four of us and our dog would be in the station
wagon towing a tent trailer, to be set up and taken down.
I knew he was there sometimes when I joined cadets and
then the militia and...sometimes after I joined the CAF,
and less when I began to have a family.
I knew where he was when we were home... sometimes,
as he was cleaning his rifles or handguns, making beer
in the wine room, carving or tinkering with something.
I knew he was there...sometimes he and mom would
argue and their voices would be raised and we could
hear them through the floor, as they struggled with
reason.
I knew he was there...sometimes he would smoke
when he drank more than he should so I would
drive us home with my new licence, before that
he would do the driving.
I knew he was there in the hospital...sometimes he
would have seizures then the aneurysm that did not
take him but made him less able to be a father
and grandfather to our children.
I knew he was no longer there over twenty years
of a slow spiral down, to where the cold, cold
lay waiting...sometimes sooner for some and
later for others.
As he lay on the bed in the care home he was
no longer there, cold to the touch, heart stopped
struggle quit,... sometimes I miss him, sometimes
I am not missing him, he was not the kindest,
and I made him my only dad... sometimes I
wonder if that was, my mistake.
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 1:34 AM UTC
Your arms are just two pieces collected from Saturn's rings
We're all made up as the same stuff as stars
Jul 7, 2016
Jul 7, 2016 at 9:35 AM UTC
we said we wanted to be painters, and we wanted to paint the world as we see it,but we can’t paint worth **** and then we wanted to write because we needed someone to understand but no one under stood the words we uttered so in printed words it dissipated because they didnt seem legit, and we said we wanted to live as artist, and we wanted to the world to be our canvas and that we didn’t want anyone to tell us a thing. We wanted to be in bands who wrote soundless music with bare hands and posted them on sites that only the “great new age.” would download onto their iPads. We were inspired by artist and freelancers and wanted to live there and be there but we ended up nowhere because wherever that world is, doesn’t exist. Our religious parents spoke to live in a certain stance, but we felt awkward between the priers with people with folded hands and closed eyes. So we felt like nothing, and then we were between nothing.
We thought we’ve better abandoned a religion who told us that we could not hold hands under the name of a Man who would in exchanged for our love we had for each othre he would burn our skin over and over in a pit because who were we to fall in love?
We thought we’ll find ourselves in otherworldly gods and goddesses, statues of morphed species, and none of this took us off our feet. We were floating space cadets and lost souls and people who were messed up in some way or another.
In other words we refused to live for each other, our individual belonged to printed posters, artistic words and longing.
What do we have to give back?
Mar 7, 2015
Mar 7, 2015 at 1:49 PM UTC
Halloween at Camp LeJuene
So those storage tanks
the ads of late-night-- all talkin' about
some thirty-five years a-leaking like...
some aplastic benzene-apocryphal river
Horror!
tastes like chemo Kool Aide
forever in the mouth
washing over parade route
seeping into boots and wombs
of cadets who can't hear the music
over a child's laughter-- ever
over failing livers
lined up like lawyers marching
onto glyphosate green
to Parkinsonian cheers
to Taps-solos echoeimg off the stone-
of mind and memory
Flags!
Flapping-angry!
“No (wo)man left behind
on the multiple ways to myeloma
Miscarriages
of justice!
A silence waiting
an eternity
of tiny infant cries
emptying....
into Love Canal
There will be...
NO JUSTICE!
Only billions set aside
for funeral-ic devastation
“Significant compensation”
--being read in a woman's face
in a woman's voice
“...suffering from any of these....
after drinking the water at Camp Le Juene”
at the hands-down
heads-turned
greased palms of
silence
being owned
by military-corpporate
“channels”
of secrecy
...of Pharma-to-government
medical-backwaters
laundered to-governments
of banana republics
Mercenery chemicals
Medicine with missile launchers
strewn
among military over-runs of...
…of high power rifles,
night goggles, and F-15s
What am I missing here?
...about the rubbery clots and myocarditis?
Has it finally come round to us?
How could I not see!
not recall?
How many years ago--
since I could hear?
the rapid fire!
“The toxic Leaks!”
“...suffered from any of these...”
...feeding tube terrors
Time's tumors
downgrade to errors
deferred...
Now beside the grief as amputees
--take the field of parade
While Misplaced Rage
pages through abortions of blame
in the chemical caldron
where they **** shower, and shave
...then towel-dry their babies
or not....
Where are the rapid-fire rats and bats
when we need 'em?
Semper Fi!
Nov 29, 2022
Nov 29, 2022 at 10:12 PM UTC
I once asked my parents if I could join cadets. They asked me if I knew what cadets grew up to be. I never brought it up again.
I got into a fight with a friend about her ex. We haven't spoken in months. She still hasn't forgiven me...
Someone detuned the piano in my mind and now music sounds awful. I want to find where melody and harmony met and made a straight line coming back to me.
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 at 10:26 PM UTC
"It always has to be about you,
Don't you ever think of anyone else?
You're so selfish, you're so stupid.
I've got to do this all again next year."
I'm the eldest child and growing up fast
University soon and you won't help.
You taunt and mock me
Tell me I can't make it,
Now you don't even want me to go but threaten me if I don't.
Struggling to find a way to manage my time,
School, cadets, open days, all the musts.
You tell me you won't help me get there,
I'll just go on my own that's fine.
But no I'm too selfish to be worth your time.
I'm not worth your time I know,
You often tell me that enough.
I'm selfish and don't realise you have other kids you say
I do realise that but I need your support too.
I'm not as strong as you presume I am.
"It always has to be about you,
Don't you ever think of anyone else?
You're so selfish, you're so stupid.
I've got to do this all again next year."
Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 2:50 PM UTC
Unfair cruelty to citizens below,
the space cadets agree its their time to show
their worldly leaders and planets alike their secret software to rule the night.
Together they fight with powers showing, invasions and aliens all the more growing. The universe is in crisis, all in fear of their lives seeing aliens and demons alike.
Death and destruction, chips implanted, portals, and chaos erupting within. Civilans confused, villains amused by the amount of chaos berused.
The council agrees the first wave is plenty, but many fight and others wont shed a penny to help the cause of saving many.
Nov 17, 2016
Nov 17, 2016 at 12:06 PM UTC
To Poets -- By Walter savege Landor[1775-1864]
My children!Speak ill of one another;
I do not ask you not to hate;
Cadets must envy every elder brother,
The little poet must the great.
Aug 28, 2015
Aug 28, 2015 at 5:00 PM UTC
Remember, I'm in love
Forget what I was saying
I know there's another name for the emotion you're displaying
Beautiful distorted effigy, have we pushed too far
Can you not see these projections only leave scars
Eyes wide open and it isn't me
I'll just give up where you can't see
How was I to know
I cannot create love
I construct mirrors covered in words
Like stained glass held up to your face
Reflection you,
My one and only sun
Whispering to me softly,
It's time to run
There's no way I can possibly catch you up
Time flys and we just stand still
In quiet condemnation, I made the first ****
No
It isn't me
I'll just give up
Pour me another glass and try keep up
I've exhausted myself and still I'm at a loss
Lights are on but who the **** is home
A flipped switch can't even turn you on
You're just a voice now, inside my head
My sanity is lost here in your bed
We'll call it fair trade,
But it's still never enough
Then the bubble bursts;
is it still really love?
Where's the evidence we ever really exsisted
Just two space cadets who always seem to miss it
Mar 16, 2019
Mar 16, 2019 at 6:11 AM UTC
odd ducks and space cadets
curry and whistler
sugary innards
emmie is now green
blackmailing her with secrets
dont accept things that are unacceptable
as sweet as pink eye
.
Apr 4, 2017
Apr 4, 2017 at 10:16 PM UTC
Left, right, left,right, we stand to fight, marching on, burden strong, heading on into the night. Waving flags, can we be saved, ravished human beings that we face, what side is right, where is the moral compass, is it for freedom or is it more than that, I don't know so I keep on trudging on into unknown space. Make your strategy, stand your ground, making rounds, shattered hearts, prepare for missiles for they are inbound. Detonate, hesitate, is this really necessary, will this war every end, at this moment things are looking scary. Remember your drills cadets for this is real life now, no time for rest or sleep, just keep on going and wipe off the sweat from your brow. War hinders on the belief that we must extinguish this threat before it takes us out, once your in you can't get out. Battlefields, mind games, will we be the same, will i be able to live with myself because i'm not sure if this is even humane. Pulling me in like a maelstrom, some don't even have a choice, they are forced to defend their country, so that when it's over we can hopefully come back and rejoice. Just keep going left, left, left, right, left, so nervous that I am strained and think my throat is in my chest, I am so bewildered and i'm not thinking straight because I am just so stressed. Keep going soldier, that what they say, that's what they have instilled into my brain, because if we win we'll have everything to gain.
Jul 8, 2016
Jul 8, 2016 at 1:39 PM UTC
Une hermine, un castor, un jeune sanglier,
Cadets de leur famille, et partant sans fortune,
Dans l'espoir d'en acquérir une
Quittèrent leur forêt, leur étang, leur hallier.
Après un long voyage, après mainte aventure,
Ils arrivent dans un pays
Où s'offrent à leurs yeux ravis
Tous les trésors de la nature,
Des prés, des eaux, des bois, des vergers pleins de fruits.
Nos pèlerins, voyant cette terre chérie,
Éprouvent les mêmes transports
Qu'Énée et ses troyens en découvrant les bords
Du royaume de Lavinie.
Mais ce riche pays était de toutes parts
Entouré d'un marais de bourbe
Où des serpents et des lézards
Se jouait l'effroyable tourbe.
Il fallait le passer ; et nos trois voyageurs
S'arrêtent sur le bord, étonnés et rêveurs.
L'hermine la première avance un peu la patte ;
Elle la retire aussitôt,
En arrière elle fait un saut,
En disant : mes amis, fuyons en grande hâte ;
Ce lieu, tout beau qu'il est, ne peut nous convenir,
Pour arriver là bas il faudrait se salir ;
Et moi je suis si délicate,
Qu'une tache me fait mourir.
Ma sœur, dit le castor, un peu de patience ;
On peut, sans se tacher, quelquefois réussir :
Il faut alors du temps et de l'intelligence ;
Nous avons tout cela : pour moi, qui suis maçon,
Je vais en quinze jours vous bâtir un beau pont
Sur lequel nous pourrons, sans craindre les morsures
De ces vilains serpents, sans gâter nos fourrures,
Arriver au milieu de ce charmant vallon.
Quinze jours ! Ce terme est bien long,
Répond le sanglier : moi, j'y serai plus vite ;
Vous allez voir comment. En prononçant ces mots,
Le voilà qui se précipite
Au plus fort du bourbier, s'y plonge jusqu'au dos,
À travers les serpents, les lézards, les crapauds,
Marche, pousse à son but, arrive plein de boue ;
Et là, tandis qu'il se secoue,
Jetant à ses amis un regard de dédain :
Apprenez, leur dit-il, comme on fait son chemin.
439
Why do you put the toilet seat down
For your inferior?
Does the drill instructor bow down and kiss the boots of the cadets?
No wonder your world is such an ugly mess - a toilet.
The strong are made weak and the fools make the rules. It's a cognitive dissonance which creates only conflict.
Clearly both sides are full of insanity.
The stupid men are women and the women are stupid men.
I suppose the men and women deserve it, for having twisted things so far against the good, abusing their power to do evil and selfish misdeeds.
Turds.
Nov 14, 2019
Nov 14, 2019 at 11:28 PM UTC