Millennials at Work and War

Scorn not the snowflake who stands watch for us

Now thrown into the existential struggle
Surrendering their youth and taking up life
They muster in the fields and factories
And in their elders’ undeclared, shadowy wars
Uniformed in an unappreciated sense
Of duty and dignity while scorned by those
Who take their ease upon the couches of sloth
And fling cheap mockery at millennials
Who take up tools and work and love of life
Sometimes to die in deserts still unmapped
While generals dismiss their casualties as light
Despised as snowflakes by keyboard commandos
Who never got closer to any war
Than a John Wayne ketchup-****** movie.
Some work long double shifts through university
In a sawmill, shop, or fast foodery
Only to be dismissed as slacker layabouts,
But expected to trust those who condemn them
For not being the greatest generation
As defined by those who never served at all
And while being criticized they will grab
A quick cup of coffee for the night shift
Staffing the hospitals and police patrols
That keep their sneering critics alive and safe
They drive the trucks, they man the ships, they work
They drill for oil, these useless millennials
While idlers lounge long in the coffee shops
And YooToob computered jokes about them
Millennials have no time for coloring books
Or comfort animals or revolution
For they are weary with study and work
The best of them make no demands, but, sure
A little respect, hard-earned, would be nice
If only the scripted singer-songwriters
Would pack up the tired old stereotypes
And see millennials as they truly are
But darkness falls – they must go back to work
On the eleven-seven, the graveyard shift
They do not burn draft cards or Medicare cards
Instead through work they illuminate this world
And build it up with continued sacrifice

Scorn not the snowflake who stands watch for us

THE MOUTH of this man is a gaunt strong mouth.
The head of this man is a gaunt strong head.

The jaws of this man are bone of the Rocky Mountains, the Appalachians.
The eyes of this man are chlorine of two sobbing oceans,
Foam, salt, green, wind, the changing unknown.
The neck of this man is pith of buffalo prairie, old longing and new beckoning of corn belt or cotton belt,
Either a proud Sequoia trunk of the wilderness
Or huddling lumber of a sawmill waiting to be a roof.

Brother mystery to man and mob mystery,
Brother cryptic to lifted cryptic hands,
He is night and abyss, he is white sky of sun, he is the head of the people.
The heart of him the red drops of the people,
The wish of him the steady gray-eagle crag-hunting flights of the people.

Humble dust of a wheel-worn road,
Slashed sod under the iron-shining plow,
These of service in him, these and many cities, many borders, many wrangles between Alaska and the Isthmus, between the Isthmus and the Horn, and east and west of Omaha, and east and west of Paris, Berlin, Petrograd.
The blood in his right wrist and the blood in his left wrist run with the right wrist wisdom of the many and the left wrist wisdom of the many.
It is the many he knows, the gaunt strong hunger of the many.

The story Clinton Jarvis - my father.

Isle La Motte Roots

There's a place of quiet peace
In beautiful Vermont
It is filled with history
It beckons you, and haunts
In pacific Lake Champlain
It's called Isle La Motte

The lake is long and narrow
A lovely gem-like blue
The Island lies within its shores
It is a jewel, too.
Emerald in the summer
In fall a topaz hue

Old style houses charm us
With plain stone quarry frames
There are many maple trees
In fall these become flame
Churches with tall steeples
All barns look much the same.

From Blanchard's Point to The Head
North to south we go
Clark's & Reynolds to Fisk & Scott's
These east/west points we know
From The Lighthouse & Fort Stann
To the marble quarries low.

It seems the rock on Isle La Motte
Was formed from glacial ice
Which pressed the clay beneath it
As if it were a vice
The marble from the quarries
Is especially nice!

Samuel Fisk founded some of these
Marble blue, black, and grey
Many used the sturdy stones
Solid houses in the way
They can be found everywhere
And still stand to this day.

There was an ingenious sawmill
Powered by a boat!
A large and hearty steamer
By The Dock would float
The "Utica" by name
As sawmill founders wrote.

The taverns and inns
Had distinctive place
It would be so heartening
To see a merry face
There the weary travellers
Could find warmth and grace.

Famous for its apples
There are many orchards found
John Bowman & William Yale
Planted in the ground
My father was one who picked from them
Folks came from miles around.

The Fleury Store had merchandise
Sold to people from their stock
Carson's Store and Naylor's
Store to store the folks would walk
Often a place of meeting
Where people stood to talk.

Elizabeth Fisk. Creative.
She had looms, and linen wrought
This fabric so very fine
Much of it was bought
There were also boats and ferries
On an island... used *a lot!

Nelson Fisk secured the Post Office
James Ritchie built in stone
His relation, Cynthia
Maintained the library alone
Succeeded by M. LaBombard
For faithfulness much known.

Both Methodist and Catholic
Worship the Divine
The faithful go to churches
No matter what the clime
A place of fame on Isle La Motte
Is lovely St Anne's Shrine.

The original schools on Isle La Motte
We're founded by strong men
Independent. Intelligent.
Created they back then.
Back in 1782 they had discerning ken.

The school my father went to
Only had one room.
He graduated the 8th grade
For his future groomed
But went to High School elsewhere
Back then quite a boon!

The Jarvis' were tennent farmers
Not much to be made
But the beauty of the place
Embraced them in its shade
T'was in this environment
Where young Clinton played.

Amongst the leaves - jade and fire
Honey'd amber caught
He found a love of nature
He was reared and taught
Here his story started

A place called Isle La Motte.


SoulSurvivor
Catherine Jarvis
(C)1/11/2017

Mustard greens and butter beans and sweet cornbread all around,
And don't forget the crookneck squash, fried a deep and golden brown.

Mounds and mounds of butter, on the corn and on separate plates,
And Jesus’ blessings, our bodies to his service, before we satiates.

Buttermilk biscuits, pull-apart-monkey-rolls and corn muffins too,
And braided bread baked tenderly by Grandmother, just for you.

Country Ham and red-eye, fried chicken and sawmill gravy,
Ready to entice with all things sav’ry.

Sweet Vidalia onions sautéed in bacon fat,
‘Cause Big Daddy always knows, just where it’s at.

We gather together, hand in hand, pressed cheek to cheek in glee,
Our hearts knitted in happiness, we are family!

Hot box a cigarette , sawmill gravy and country ham ,
Entrenched in the morning paper , dishes scrubbed , drumming of pots and pans ! Blue collar people with somewhere to be , buoy's chained to the bottom of the sea ! Sweet black ribbon covered in fire ants , May honeybees , wildebeest crossing the wild African plains..
White smokestack dens of endless toil , black tar factories , dead fish waterway , boiling star infrastructures !
Biscuit , tobacco , hot coffee welder , plumber and electrician
Caviar , flounder , after dinner mint doctor and lawyer ..
Goody powders ,  soda pop cures , work induced migraines for
societies  'riff raff' , high atop steel skeletons , life hanging in balance .
Xanax , blue cheese , marriage counselor soccer moms , yoga , wine party ..Young people lie in their own blood , candle light vigils are like all others . Repetitive anguish falling on deaf ears , billion dollar football stadiums , homeless freeze to death , Good Morning America focused on the Grammy Awards or someones *** , Miley's tongue , Scientology or Donny and Marie !
Bath salt possession , teenagers are shot full of bullets , Kelley and Michael promote Hollywood garbage , their so ******* cute !

With our backs to her bed,
Lady Brett and I had a picture
taken and sent--
our chance: then--
brief and spent,
oh how my fingers
went fidgeting,
begging for a start
or
an end--
from time to time
they still do,
when I drink the milky
skin of fabricated twin--

In sighing, cracked parking lot,
lit by tired moon--
Lady Brett glanced over shoulder
as I cashed kiss,
turned and fled--
a weary drive
lit by bent cigarettes
and a whispered,
"goodbye lioness."

I long to transfuse
Lady Brett's cynical spine
with two bottles of wine--
an evening in ether,
a ballroom bedroom heater,
until all yesterdays
discard,
carried by wind,
obliterated in sawmill,
scatter across new babes,
seed,
a lesson in imminent sin.

But Lady Brett
and I,
will scheme more than abide
will degrade more than refine
will die more than find
fruition--
all our ashy, planned action--
a century apart,
125-miles too soon.

She knew she had it coming, he was due home any minute,
That stupid ****** letter, she knew she should have binned it.
The door flies open, in he storms, angry flaring nostrils,
"So baby, you think you're leaving me for that ******* at the sawmill?".
She backs up, knowing what's in store, he locks them both inside,
She runs away, to no avail, there's nowhere she can hide.
He catches her and spreads her legs and lifts her to the table,
On top of her, he violates, he's obviously unstable.
"Let him take you now *****", spitting words into her mouth,
Then just as quickly as it started, he sighs and pulls it out.
The facade returns, her chores begin, she aches for her sweet lover,
He'll come one day to rescue her, and save her from her father.

so much wrong 
in these hearts. 
these heads, laid neatly in a row 
on a pillow of stone are 
filled with fevered dreams 
of old kingdoms wasted and gone. 
fitful sleep stretched and stressed until 
tears fall upon this chest 
where you once rested and whispered 
something about home. 
no mercy, ******* – 
no redemption found on the skinny streets remembered from 
a misbegotten youth. 
no escape, *******,
up groaning steps 
made sweaty by air as humid as 
the breath of fate. 
i’m a stranger 
whose tires are unwelcomed on your highways and 
whose dollars are unwanted at your filling stations and 
whose soul is beyond saving. 
blood pooled on the sawmill floor 
when hungry teeth touched tender flesh, and 
left only a phantom.

somewhere in there
sounds like a kid
searching for another permuta-
tion of himself, some
semblance of a would-be he won’t hate.
that’s me, I’ll never run out of pain.
this genteel ache,
this conclusion, has nothing to do with choice.
there are some who’re born broken,
those unobtrusives with chapped lips, glancing up for
drones that might pick them up
then throw them to another Earth,
those who like getting into strangers’ cars, laying their head on the
dashboard that’s softer than their bed.
they on cold nights like to whisper to God: ‘we
don’t like this experiment.’ we are more
than warning signs of civilization in peril.
dead and gone.
don’t refuse exploitation; that’s how we still feel useful.
don’t the characters in some books make rooves out of leaves? too
dogged to prioritize shelter, though. too
drugged to maintain another thing
doomed to crack and crumble. just never enough time.
days flow by like silk into a sawmill. In the
dark we try to see if we still stand on strong ground, or surface tension.

such is
the rhythm. feet damp with cakemud. in
darkness we see stoplights turn red, sometimes yellow.

Our fathers told of hard times on the farm
Of walking barefoot down the road to school
And walking home again to get the cows back up
From woods and fields to the old dairy barn

And joining the Army at seventeen
Sleeping later in boot camp than on the farm
Coming home from the war to look for a job
Thirty years at the sawmill – then laid off

And in his turn a New Man proudly says:

I scored real high on Minecraft on my ‘phone
While standing in line for my free school supplies

ACQUISITION  APPOLEARNT ESTEM
RE: INDIGENEOUS –‘FATE ‘ GENOTYPE PATHING
Gimmorality  sovereignity  Siesta  behind the sawmill  emsoilage Zipporah’s  En –Root Stalk –of Peddigeance  vision  cortex:
The unpredictable magnificence vigor molten  cooingly-of
Proof  above the exigencies prior engrafting tools:
THE  KINGDOMMEZIA   META MORPHOSDEIKKAS:
Pipeline Oath digestion
‘Vaso-Versatile’
Consummate instance of wherein  paypriceless
‘ TALENT-TALE’ BEYOND THE TELEGRAM POLE
GENRE THE PROLETTE  OF PRO SELDOM ABOVE  CRITICS’
STOCK  RETENCENCE
ASYLUM VERTERAN
PILLAR PILGRIMAGE MANUAL
COTTON BRASS
BRACE GLIMPSES
BRUCE BEBYLON  THORNS
MID. WIFERY CONSIGNMENT/ FIDELITY FIDAL QUESTS
//the flashy art Seoul theatreez  OCTOPOSE PARACHUTES  Rainbowl Friettaos ET. Rivervese Strewelries-of rehabilitation engrossingly culmination visible dressing the illumination :
Stewardship Reorigine  Creaions
Stretching ‘Calf –Career’ Stereoscopic Seminaries
Pace-Setter: Bullock Yarning Beyond Prey mountain
BULKBOTH HERALDNG  RECESSION  CO-ENCROACHMENT
Spar under Oaths :
The Uncharttedly   bruce…’
ELLEANOR PODIUM PORTRAITS-
Above peddigres
Stir mediocre gothamcadre von pour care
‘KIOSK-KILO’ FULLERMINDNAC ICON VAULTS:
Kartryn Khulman Conference
Reliance  Conspiracies // the priceless  reoccurrence ORACLE  EXITHRAOST//

COUCH BEATITUDES
Order of amnesticuttez-Gymmordoc ghost ‘LIAISON
EMAIL: believingvirtue@gmail.com
+2348131914240
INTERIOR CAPE APEX//www.treasuredconcept.blogspot.com


THE BOOMINGLY BIKE  HAIL PLUMMATORY -OF THE  UNDER MOTH  IMMOLATION ....AUTO CRAFT

EMCRUISS // ENVELOP PING// INBORN  MIGHTY VENTURES


GHOSTWRITTEN  ISLE :

FLIVE LIOFEETS

Prejudices // Jaundice// Kroc nod // Guise forte prerequisites-of  KNOWLEDGEIZZ

The smiling moon bobs in an out
of the crackling moonlit trees
Crickets chirping reveille
Farm boys awake to work the crops while
city boys roll over from too many porch shots
Moms kitchen filled with the scent of bacon
and eggs , sawmill gravy , grits and biscuits
Roosters announcing the dawn , howling hounds , idling tractors ,
The clang of hand tools , inquisitive geese chatter on the run , braying mules ,
Whoever said it was quiet on the farm was a **** fool

Not
a splintered sawmill
or a rotting waterwheel

but the bundle
you're muling


charred
useless wood

a bridge fire
lit
by a laconic spark

you were there
but you didn't
strike the match
so cork it

no weeping
no tears
no time
for lamenting

because
off-screen
the sky barks

here

just take my knife
cut the twine
let the timbers fall
and crumble

run

and don't worry about
a mess
the wind can blow away

© Whit Howland 2019

Daffodils in a sawmill with the will to survive can thrive.

And I do cartwheels when I don't get my own way!

What has today done to me, has it made me a miser, a scrooge like skinflint?
I hear operas from angels only to complain about the noise.

The choicest cut,
but I want that one
and as time goes on
I want it more,
the butcher has other ideas.

seek and ye will find
well
I find that behind me
others seek too

nothing unique
and when it is
it's patented.

I’m a sawmill in the sky.
And I’ll cut you down to size
in eighths like apple pie.

Don’t overlook me
as a jumpy little flea
that is hidden in the hair
of your old grandmother’s chair.

Don’t contemplate
me as second rate.
I’m better than anyone.
Second to none.

America, these unconventional
Blues got bags and stretchers
For the blue light special,
Chalk for the teachers
Of the wrong kind of freedom
My old co-worker from
The sawmill days
Steers a riverrun now,
Tugs barges through
The stations of the
Mississippi bridges,
Writes on FB
These protesters should
Get a job
So we don't pay
For their cell phones and health care,
Bullet wounds and bad decisions
Like the color of
Their parents
And the shape
Of their skulls
Phrenologically
Speaking.
He's got no ear for the music,
America's Blues,
Just get off the street
Son, it's yr own
Fault if yr head
Gets Kracked
Or yr shot in the back
By the Blues.
He'll vote for law,
Pardon vigilantes
And fire those *******
Millionaires that dare
To take a knee
Or fail to play the game.