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Joseph Childress Sep 2010
Apart
Departed
Parted ways
Discard
This card
Its a scar
A love scar
It tells
A tale
Of what once was
A stale
Stench
Fumes from the outdated
Perfume
The lipstick print
Burned
A permanent
Memory
I'll never forget
Those lips
Slipped
After i danced
With the devil
For a bit
I
The advocate
For too much pride
Abdicated
My position
As dictator
For your revolution
Your free
This civil war
Was uncivilized
Lies
Across the frontline
Frontin, lying
Guess
I'm a traitor
I traded
It all
For the greatest fall
I ever took
I know
I don’t deserve
A parachute

So let me loose...

.Suicidal Paratrooper.
Louis Brown Sep 2010
They put me by the door
And I could see below
800 feet to the ground
A solid green carpet
Looking soft enough to sleep on.
But the limbs underneath
Were sharp and deadly.
It wasn't a good day
For a jump I thought.
Who wants to jump out of a C-47
On their first airplane ride
Into the wild blue yonder--
No one with good sense
As I answered my own question.
I remembered hearing about
The guy who received a parachute
Not knowing it needed repair
But he had faith nothing happened
To a nice guy like him.
So when he jumped out
And didn't feel the jolt slow down
His descent to the ground
He looked up with panicked eyes
And saw the chute fluttering away.
He muttered a few cuss words
When he saw the ground come fast.
He didn't pull his reserve in time
And never heard the deadly thud.
Those were my thoughts
As the T-7 parachute
Opened with the snap of a whip
Just as the parachutist behind me
Started walking on my canopy.
I could see his boots sink in deep
And I hollared, get your sorry *** off
You low life no good *******--
A panic lingo that flowed out
Because I was scared crapless
At the turn of events.
Luckily my chute didn't collapse
And his chute started floating away.
No harm done except my nerves
Were a little frayed.
It only takes about 8-10 seconds
To get to the ground
From the time you leave the plane.
So I looked down and there it was
With the wind blowing about 20 knots.
I could feel myself swaying
Much like a pendulum on a clock.
I wasn't trained to land on my back
As I'd learned the five point landing technique
But then the ground slammed my rear
With a sledge hammer effect
Knocking the light off in my brain.
But I must have awakened shortly
As the wind had opened my canopy
Dragging me across the rocky landing zone
Till I became aware and remembered
To pull the bottom risers on my chute
To empty the air from it
So I could roll on top of it.
Then an instructor came by yelling
Get your *** up soldier
And take your chute back where you got it.
I responded accordingly
Wanting to keep my nose clean
And make the rest of my jumps
So I could get my Parachutist Wings.
It would take 4 more jumps that week.
I had to meet those requirements
Or they would send my derriere oveseas
Where a war was going on.
That was all the incentive I needed
To bust my **** gladly
And claw my way to paratrooper status.
Geronimo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
I thought sheepishly to myself
For my not so altruistic bravado.
Copyright Louis Brown
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2017
oh i didn't write something to change the boundaries,
i wanted to capture the digital narrative,
or how the hope of destroying all forms of theology
with our a.i. gravitas, we started to
apply the digital anaesthetic -
and cradle the numbing effects of:
                 us, in experiment,
or: us, in a medium of synthetic material...
             either way pushing us apart friom actually
inhabiting organic matter...
           the many of us these these are merely pawn
in the game...
                  we're pawns in a construction site
of all thing theretical... meaning it's truly 2D by comparison
to the 3D structures we see...
       the element that will truly give a.i. it's ego?
wait wait... why with latin dead and me not speak it
but i have this theoretical baggage of ego?
            ego is only short of en egg should i decide to
write it... arbeit macht frei must come from
counter-conceptualisation of the remains of the roman
empire with self- (hyphen included), to remind people
that it's all about work, and how we will either loose
or free ourselves from the re in the setting sun to echo aeons...
that might be the case...
            but find me a modern day writer who has
to use this medium of people talking over one another...
find me a writer who''s lodged in the internet like
a cherry atop a cake...
          who can't be gagging for a log cabin in some obscure
place, who has to be in the thick of it...
       i'm not writing to change the world,
i'm writing to describe the status quo...
            qua norm, or should i say "norm"...
from status quo comes the question: qua status?
     when i write i think about throwing a pebble into
a lake, compared to throwing a pebble into a river...
compared to throwing a pebble into a sea...
to be honest? throwing a pebble into a sea is
the most involving...
                  and there is poetic subconscious in this,
which i will unearth: the pebble is supposed to mean this:
the three forms of water are supposed to represent
another this:
                                 the pebble is supposed to represent
a soul, a concentration of my my, my sigma (total),
and the three tiers of water are supposed to represent this...
that said, i watched
    an internet video... by angry mgtow...
an answer to white women are rejecting beta males now /
blonde in the belly of the beast...
   first thing: why are men using the internet
deemed more "creepy" than women?
    we've already embarked on this a.i. project for the sole
reason as to overcome theological argument and
religion... we are living in a Frankenstein experiment,
but the "problem" is that we're only working on
the software package of the beast...
         the hardware can wait... we're not going to replace
our fondness for busdrivers and cleaners any time soon...
  we love our manual labourers...
                  american woman! stay away from me!
american woman! mama let me be!

   (it's daily, over and over in my head, that line and
many more kindred sing-alongs)
   we've already been drafted into creating the software
of the a.i. beast, it doesn't matter that the
hardware is already there but that we've stalled its
potential... the software is harder to be bound to
the logistics a limb might be drafted to exhibit basic
tongue of movement...
          all compliments to women:
they're the irrationality that will give the a.i. the spark!
           meaning autonomy...
  and how could i not even sound like an atypical man?
don't date the opposite ***?
              tease urban living with what life's like in
the middle-zone of outer-urbanity, i.e. the case of
a ******* bungalow? ha ha.
                              but this video got me like i might
catch a herring, and i do love pickled herrings...
raw pickled herrings...  it just got me
when i said: i'd like to move to the Faroe Islands...
no please, spare me the misery...
                         it's hard not to be
sexually antagonistic (sexist) - esp. when you're
not a sheikh with a motorboat and a fluffy moustache
that might brush-up against the ******* like
a vibrating ***** while you taste the pastries of flesh
with a saintly glee...
             every time i performed oral ***
on her i felt i left that hot-spot having slobbered
a tonne of lard... smeared a tonne of ****** cream and
that my face became phosphorescent, or an anglerfish:
which is the first sign before you don't even
bother to care to launch a space mission apollo 13
into the depths containing stars... or ask
      ridley scott...
                          i think he's the one dubbed:
coping mechanism... unlike philip k **** this guy's
a coping mechanism, a rare spectacle:
science fiction obstructs actual science...
                     i'm glad he's around and i pray that
we truly explore the depths of seas before going up
there: where the sun don't shine.
                  but this video got to me...
                i can't relate to it, either with the masculine
theory or the feminine experience...
i don't know: it almost feels like i live in a time
capsule at the best part of the 20th century when
i could still buy compact discs in a music shop
on a high-street... when there was no over-arching
agarophobia and claustrophobia telling us
when it was worthwhile to leave the house...
   and when it wasn't...
                         i opened another bottle of wine
that i made myself, and i don't know...
                  we started by ridding ourselves of god
to later replenish that end with a death of us,
it's almost as if we're staging parameters of being human
in this 2D construction site, on the basics:
merely exchanging opinions...
                                         i have, coming naturally:
this curiosity with the internet...
   i remember times of hotmail.com chatrooms...
      it's not as old as some people will claim the burden
to be, but the times when the ****** medium was
being sold to us... before facebook and subsequently otherwise
people were still very much comfortable before the television
set... but then people became less interested in
music and decided music could only exist in software
and not hardware, and i started to forage the berry shrubs of
youtube for music...
  i hope i don't precipitate any thought toward
nostalgia... bearing in mind i did establish myself
on the memory of having been to the cinema
to watch the films blow and austin powers 2:
the spy who shagged me
- and in the latter case
i laughed at the shadow-scene like i might at
a laurel and hardy... and in the former case i loved
the music... and that's before comedy became too
"intelligent": too canned laughter...
revisionist existentialist, when dittoing can no longer
mean borrowing, or passing on a meaning,
                     or d.n.a. competition, when the end result
is but ~ (approximate) / ambiguity...
    the too intelliget: canned laughter...
                   the last time i really laughed at the movies
i was watching austin powers 2: the spy who shagged me...
the tent scene... it was the epitome of comedy,
a laurel and hardy slap stick incantation of a viewer...
   i guess it only comes with a sense of an individual
finding something so simple funny, that when
the same individual is dropped like a paratrooper into
a cinema audience: his laughter will become akin to
a virus, and thus become infectious and the individual
in mind because the cursor for canned laughter
later stored, to witness a televised episode of Friends
or Fraiser... which... would you believe it: aren't funny at all.
what was i going on about in the first place?
      ha ha... dunno... which makes Nick Harper a comic
genius... every time i see him
i laugh like a tickled ******* dangling off a bull horn
and two words ring a bell: mein shawl! and yes: it's
dramatically flinged, like i might be found
******* against the wind...
   quick question! five easy pieces rebel or cool hand
luke rebel?!
John Cleland Apr 2012
Lucky Bug

Black polka dots –
on a vibrant red
wing.

Six silent footsteps –
clutching to the ceiling,
daredevil wearing a smile.

A single false step –
wings spread;
always prepared to skydive.

Tranquil buzz in your ear;
noise translated to ethereal music -
whispers of joy.

Gently landing on your shoulder –
the paratrooper hits its mark
without fail.

Lady Luck presents herself,
calm in nature -
magical when seen.

Uncommon blessings -
found on the edge of a leaf,
the corner of your eye.
Poetoftheway Feb 2018
she writes me from Paris

wanting a command,
exactement comme moi
all her own.
to scribe.
in “a style with strength”

exactement comme moi
exactly like me

where the ideas percolate
for the precise gestation period
and the birth-born poems a-coming
without and within silent no belabored pain,
making the child appear as if it was only waiting
already, on its own good time. for saying thank you
for your patient waiting and who is really in
command?

when the overwhelming light orders “write”
I am gone from yesterday and the safe of picayune
does that sound like I am in
command?

you wish to command?

join the navy, the army,
become a paratrooper,
command in poetry is illusory,
for it comes from the bell tower rage of madness
of what my ancestors planted and bequeathed genetically,
and I have wasted the better half of a century appealing for
relief and making it clear who commands and who is the
“poetoftheway” slave

rejoindre la marine, l'armée,
devenir un parachutiste,
commande en poésie est illusoire,
car il vient du clocher de la rage de la folie
de ce que mes ancêtres ont planté et légué génétiquement,
et j'ai gaspillé la meilleure moitié d'un siècle attrayant pour
soulagement et en précisant qui commande et qui est le
“Poetoftheway" esclave

exactement comme moi
exactly like me?

exactly.
Ainsley Oct 2015
Deathbed Confession

“In 1971 a man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked
a plane from Portland to Seattle, demanded parachutes
and $200,000 in cash, then jumped into the night with
the money, never to be seen again.” — fbi.gov

So little seemed to be at stake.
The bomb was real; the threat was fake.
Neither was difficult to make.

And I was in my element,
or almost there. Yes, the descent
was cold, but warmer as I went,

and yes it was coal black and raining,
but I had uppers and my training.
I’ve spent my whole life not complaining.

When I could see the woods I wandered
out with the twenties, which I laundered,
safety-deposited, and squandered,

and with the oddest thing — a name
I’d paid for but could never claim,
a private riddle, private fame.

That’s been the hardest part: denial —
remaining of no interest while
the Bureau opened up a file

on every former paratrooper
who in his final morphine stupor
discovered he was D.B. Cooper.

I’m D.B. Cooper. There, I said it.
It’s decent work if you can get it,
but it pays cash. There is no credit,

or blame, or pity in thin air,
and I’ve spent forty winters there.
I’ll take whatever you can spare,

although I don’t suppose the guy
whose last confession is a lie
deserves it any less than I.

*This piece is written by Kansas Poet Laureate Henry McHenry. The rights to the poem are completely his.
Daniel Samuelson Nov 2014
The paratrooper
clad in chlorophyllic green
stoic in resolve he leaps
jettisoned from lofty perch
spiraling in space
tumbling through time.
Airborne
born into the air
delivered to the dirt
he dies, decomposes
a casualty of consequence
body brown and rotting in the rain.

Wars are waged and seasons change
and the world spins on in spite of all.
So it's more like winter now, at least here at school. The first snow happened on Sunday, and another comes tonight. I wrote this a little over a month ago as the leaves began to fall and decided I ought to post it to make it seem like I'm not completely in a dry season for writing (Spoiler Alert: I am). But here. =)
topaz oreilly Nov 2012
Colours buy silence.
I publicly deny Prussian Blue was my first,
the colour of a Paratrooper
but my Lover bequested the time.
I subterfuge the lower end scale of green,
like hopeless moss
coilling my Adversaries dreams
I am sunk with a kiss -
deeper than quagmire
she will obtuse my decree,
home is the tireless winds
further than the cut of her high cheekbones
tread Aug 2013
I vowed to say nothing
but know this: I love you. I love you more than waking up at 5 AM after a night of camping, the smell of dewey cold conquistadoring my blunt and modern senses. I love you more than the girl who haunted my every waking moment for months after the solvent collapse. I love you more than when someone says, ‘you’re the most beautiful person I know.’ I love you more than the taste of freshly ground arabica bean on a cold winter morning, watching the snow flit past the window like little paratrooper angels here to spread the word of pristine silence. I love you more than nights spent watching the stars with a morning empty of obligation. I love you more than my crack addiction to knowledge. And you know who you are.
And when I write vaguely of someone I love

 I hope you remember 


It’s you, you beautiful freak of my life.
It’s you, it’s you, it will always
be you.
a special thanks to the greatest thing to ever happen to me

I love you.
Anthony Pierre Nov 2019
How a humble son of Scotland
Fought to enviable height
First a paratrooper captain
Then as a British knight

This witty chap from Glasgow
Loaned himself, a decorated past
From Distinguished Service Order
To NATO's advisory cast

As the press took him in notice
His wiki posts drew no pity
As with his tale of valour
He was defamed: "Sir Walter Mitty"
Historical account: A Tale of Valour
Matt Apr 2015
Maybe I'll drive out to the mountain today
I like it up in the mountains
Just me and the mountain again

The air is cool and crisp
The water is refreshing

You never know who you will meet
On the mountain

Mmm I enjoy my dried apricots and raisins
On the mountain

I am a man in nature
Therapist left me
F!

That's alright
Still got the mountain
Can't take that away from me, hahaha

Still got nature
I may not have any money
But I have the mountain

Nobody is coming to give me a hug
Or to give a ****

And so I reach out my hand
As I climb the mountain
Touching the sky!!!

Alright!
Getting hugged by the creator
That's God's son, that's God's son!
Look at him go
I wish this life wouldn't hurt me so!

We are all children of the creator

An epic, a dream
I can't explain this life
Amazing that we are here isn't it

I can't help but smile and laugh
It's amazing to be alive
Man oh man!

More times and more times
Here they come again!

I am sick of these people
Tired of this home
And I just don't f
*
care anymore
So I'm going to the mountain

Get back to the fight soldier!
My ipad just told me that lol
I'm a soldier in WWII in this game

My grandfather he was in North Africa
My great uncle he was a paratrooper, 82 airborne
The blood that ran through them, runs through me!

I'm a soldier
We are all soldiers on battlefield earth
And we fight for what it is right
And we will not live with fear in our hearts!
Matt Apr 2015
Just Some Guy
All alone
I ate too much peanut butter

I work out
I'm not that strong
Not that fast

I do not rely on the strength of my own flesh

I'm tired
I never really feel that well

I don't have a job

Our country is dying
Slowly dying

My ancestors
One served in a Delaware unit
During our war for Independence
Another fought for the Union

One grandfather was a submariner
Another a soldier
Great uncle was a paratrooper

I'm not going to the FEMA camp
I'l fight, fight, fight
To the bitter end

Give me liberty
Or give me death!
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
**** me, now i never wished to have been born white... dating yesterday you can almost see why - makes no sense! Norwegian Bland and Canadian Eskimo!*

maybe when i'm dead you'll
understand...
or be the least likely to do so,
when, as cited, it's paratrooper proof
of a darth vader;
i'm buying the least likely bet - kindred
worth of Afghanistan poets,
and crass ****-ups of western hindering
to juggle national anthems
and gambling dishonouring...
by the fireside with dwarfs, a hobbit, i,
i rather be a Cheshire cat of a smile, to keep,
as lost and remembered
rather than be kept to unnecessary grievances:
as once did the colonial nations
ardently forgetting to no applause kept,
if i too could keep the salvage of ****** pristine labours
and never caress a history of the Congo with
the Belgians including committing deep-fry of
afros and genocide; if that happened... well...
i'd just say: gel up for the afro to turn into a mahican!
brandon nagley Jun 2015
They gave him a gun,
One bullet
His paratrooper chute
And one cigarette
Also words of advice,
(Stay behind the trench)

Just enough for dying!!!!
Poetoftheway Jul 2023
Poet, you wish to command?

join the navy, the army,
become a paratrooper,
command in poetry is illusory,
for it comes from the bell tower rage of madness,
from, of, what my ancestors planted and bequeathed genetically,
I have wasted the better half of a century appealing for relief,
making it clear who commands and who is the
“poetoftheway”
slave

<>

rejoindre la marine, l'armée,
devenir un parachutiste,
commande en poésie est illusoire,
car il vient du clocher de la rage de la folie,
de ce que mes ancêtres ont planté et légué génétiquement,
et j'ai gaspillé la meilleure moitié d'un siècle attrayant pour
soulagement et en précisant qui commande et qui est le
“Poetoftheway"
esclave

exactement comme moi
exactly like me?

exactly.
May 30th
ghost queen May 2021
Madame LeCarvennec had asked the chauffeur to be at Manoir Tregont Mab by 7 PM, the start of civil twilight during the vernal equinox, which would give them plenty of time to get to Pointe du Raz by nightfall at 8:52 PM.

It would be bitterly cold and windy at Enez Sun, so Gaëlle put on her black Lululemon cold weather leggings, long sleeved top, fleece vest, black hooded Patagonia puff down jacket, and black military style UGG leather boots.

Madame LeCarvennec had her druidess clothes and things taken to the island this morning, so she could travel and fly unencumbered.

Gaëlle walked down the stairs, where Madame LeCarvennec was waiting for her. They kissed twice cheek to check in silence. Then Madame LeCarvennec gave her a quarter baguette, ham, and butter sandwich.

Gaëlle walked out into the drizzling cold and stepped into a black Evoque Range Rover. The chauffeur, a middle aged man, armed and former  1st Marine Infantry Paratrooper, gave her a quick glance in the rear view mirror and started to drive.

They drove  in silence up D783 to Quimper, then D784 east to Pointe du Raz. She looked at the windows at the ghostly landscape, houses passing by in a blur. The seriousness of the situation weighed on her, as she slipped deeper into her thoughts, watching the endless landscape of cornfields.

They pulled into the deserted Pointe du Raz gravel parking lot. The sound of muffled crunching rocks bring her back to the moment. The driver stopped. She got out, and gasped at the cold vicious wind. She closed the door, and the chauffeur drove off. She was alone, in the dark Finistère shoreline.  

She walked down the paved trail towards the Sémaphore de la Pointe du Raz, a modern lighthouse, equipped with the latest in high-tech lighting, electronics, and microwave communication equipment. Then pass the Notre Dame des Naufragés, Our Lady of the Shipwrecked statue, till she got to the edge of the jagged rocks jutting into the Atlantic.

Directly in front of her was La Vieille, a lighthouse built on a rock, to the north Phare de Tévennec, a lighthouse built on a big rock and said to be haunted, and to the northwest, the infamous lighthouse Ar Men, called the hell of hells by keepers.

Lighthouses were classified by keepers into three categories, according to the harsh working conditions: "Hell" for houses at sea, "Purgatory" for island houses,  and "Paradise" for houses on land.

5 miles out, she could barely make out Enez Sun. The island was dark. The residents had left. The island was deserted except for the nine priestesses. Gaelle jumped into the air, placing her hands to her side as she picked up speed and altitude. The wind was blowing hard, forming white caps on the waves below.

She saw the bonfire, outstretched her hands, lowered her legs, and started her descent, landing several meters away from the circle of priestesses. A priestess pointed to a sack with Gaelle’s clothes: a white heavy cotton dress, a thick green woolen cloak, and turnshoe soft leather shoes.    

The priestesses were standing, holding hands, around two standing stones called Les Causeur in a field south of Eglise Saint-Guénolé in the center of town. Gaelle watched as they chanted and swayed rhythmically as a group. She knew from her days as a priestess, she could not be part of the circle, as the individual priestesses gave their power to the circle and leader, the eldest of the priestess, to amplify and see into the future.  

The priestesses swayed, tilting their heads back, chanting, but the eldest, Kermorian, bowed her head, concentrating and focusing her Sight. Images would come into focus, and she could make out their meaning, front the context of the subject or their surroundings. It was up to her to piece together the visions and make sense of what she’d seen.

Kermorian dropped to her knees. Her head bowed low. The circle stilled and quieted. Kermorian spoke, “ I see her. She has returned to Paris. She seeks her mother, to bring her back. She had killed many girls and many more will die to resuscitate the mother. She is manipulating men, and one in particular, to unearth her mother. That is all that I can see this night.”    

Kermorian, fell back on her ***, exhausted from the vision. Her second attending to her. The priestesses broke their circle and gathered around the fire, breaking breads, cakes, and drinking wine.  Kermorian weakly got up and walked to the fire, sat down on a cut tree stump and stared into the bonfire.

Kermorian spoke, and the priestess quieted. “She is back. Our sisters in Čachtice had been watching her. It is clear why she is back. To resurrect her mother, whom the French archeologists from la Musée Carnavalet are excavating her coffin.”

Kermorian waved Gaelle to her. “You are the closest to the archeologist and the mother. He will lead you to the daughter. Only then will we know how to deal with her and how to stop her from resurrecting her mother. The mother is the one who decimated our people. She must not be allowed to return. When the archeologist removes the iron stake through her heart, and the daughter feeds her blood, the mother will resurrect and seek vengeance on our people.”

Gaelle knew of the horrors the vampires had wreaked on her people. The systematic slaughter most of the druids, priestesses, vaters, and bards, killing the leaders, dispersing the followers. She then killed the men, so no fields could be tilled, gamed hunted, or women and children protected. They died by the thousands, the luck ones were taken into slavery by the Romans.  

The Celts abandoned their cities, dispersed, and hid deep into the forest of Europe. Our people hid in forests around Rennes, Broceliande, Quimper, Carnac, and Armorique.  

The Celtic culture was slowly forgotten and replaced by Gallic, then Roman, and finally French.

A small group of priestesses and druids were able to **** and stop most of the vampires. The others fled Europe, going deep into the desolate and savage Ural mountains, where they stayed until now.

The Christians and their new ways dismissed vampires, fairies, and magik even though their Holy books spoke of Lilith and her sisters in the garden of Eden, succubi, and magik.

Gaelle had seen excavation, the coffin, and Gerard. She’d gotten close to him, ****** him, and made sure he'd not forget her.
The Paratrooper

I was falling through the air couldn’t see a thing, opened up
my ******* umbrella and descended in an orderly fashion.
A scythe of a moon gave enough light so I could see the coastline
and the dark, menacing sea just waiting to fill my lung with water.
By manipulating the umbrella's ribs, I landed safely on the beach,
folded the collapsible and got away as foam and horrid sea tried to
drag me under. To get home I had to walk through a monocultural
nightmare of pop music, endless Fado, and orange trees the bore
nothing, but yellow fruit no one bothers to pick up as the land
is drowning in sticky juice and no gin. Anyway, supermarkets sold
virtual orangeade. I was walking uphill now, downhill too, but
mostly uphill. From a hilltop, I could see my cottage; noticed the yard
light was still on and hear the desultory din of an aeroplane circling
looking for a lost passenger

— The End —