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Carlos Molina Dec 2014
Long days have passed
Since I tried to forget you last.
Pain and resentment have seceded,
Yet the vile melancholy has succeeded.

And part by part,
it chokes my heart.
I'm not good at rhyming.
http://youtu.be/RGFytiWwsRo
(this is a link to a video that I created for this poem)
Ridgewood (Where We Wait)
We take the most delicious train
to the Queens-Brooklyn border to get here
Where everything is liminal, uncertain, undecided
Even the foundation, Arbitration Rock, at the house on Onderdonk
Was buried for centuries, dug up, and chucked on another imaginary line
The streets are on a grid, and the border on a diagonal
making a stair-stepping hypotenuse of the confused
A challenge to put your time to good use
even on the oz-like yellow brick road on Stockholm
You hear Poles on the street muttering “Marnowanie mojego
czasu tutaj” through the bachata dripping
from the apartments above the stores on Fresh Pond Road

Two of the best restaurants in the boroughs
Rosa’s pizza and Zum Stammtisch mark
the north and south borders of the hill where we wait  
During the seventy-seven riots, Ridgewood
seceded from her stepsister, broke from Boswijk and Breuckelen
-
There’s racism here like carbon monoxide smoke:
at the Ridgewood Y, a man sweats through his shirt
revealing swastikas pierced through the skin underneath
and the Romanian dentist down the street drilling
says “Cred ca am pierd timpul meu aici”
through the machinery scream and burning enamel
she won’t say this if you understand what she means

Walking past the 99 cent stores and the pharmacies,
remembering that there is good, fast, and cheap
But you can only have two of them at the same time,
Crazy Loretta, under her navy knit woolen hat
in her pink sweatsuit and winter coat, smokes
her shaking hand-rolled cigarettes below the train
trestle grinning with her jaw-jutting through
her inch thick specs.  She waggles her chicken bone fingers
saying, “Hiya honey” when you walk by.
If you are brave enough to stop and talk to her,
she’ll tell you that her nephew plays
for the Texas Rangers and her daughter
is a doctor and she’ll probably give you bedbugs
She’ll tell you, fascinated, like a child: “when you squish them - the blood comes out”
She’ll tell you the same thing tomorrow - Loretta forgets.  
In her mind, a phrase like green smoke from her youth
Ich glaube, ich bin meine Zeit hier

The playgrounds are packed with children
practicing how to swear, the girls huddled
reading Twilight like the Bible, and the boys
huddled reading the girls like the Bible
A woman yells to her son to come home a third time
and mutters “Creo que estoy perdiendo mi tiempo aquí”

Buried in Machpelah Cemetary less than a mile from my house,
is the place Houdini is still staging his greatest escape
He has a wide audience.  Sometimes I think there are more dead
residents of Ridgewood than living ones.  The cemeteries stretch
the borders of the appropriate spilling into Christ
the King high school’s front lawn.  Driving Cypress Hills street,
the Manhattan skyscrapers rise looking tomb-toothed parallaxed and
blurry through ephemeral sepulchres, stones, and cement angels pointing at the sky

On one of the stones it says simply: Videor perdo temporis hic
I think we are wasting our time here.
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
In a strange mood - see/write art



in a strange way, disorganized but straight on,
light tinted magenta, issuing, in frothy large pours, from my mouth,
knowing what to say, and the meaning too,
I can more than walk, can write, on water,
where all can read weeping, Mary-miracles of seeing, living words,
themselves, on light waves lapping in a
shifting rotunda vision, color reorienting spatial senses.^

in a strange, strange stitch, seasonal spirits and witches,
Chagall, Baez, Dylan Thomas, Donovan, Richie Havens
doing their knitting in my brain, from Montmartre to the Midwest to Monterey,
painters and poets in lockstep head-messing with me,
imperfect clarity but still one voice,
see/write art,
so went and caught the wind, going gently into night
to banish the hodgepodge of uncertainty from inside out.

knowing well you don't understand fully, but jumbling tumbling
verses are sliding off my rusted tongue as fiddlers fly above,
roughened words, hewn from a paper cup, spilling diamonds uncut, imported from Sarajevo, Montparnasse, the Lower East Side.
wretched me, in the hour I first believed, this amalgamated conception conceded,
seceded from my mind into your palate for a tasting,
tho neither drugged, nor deaf and dumb, just slammed poetical-like, this write is
all I have to portend is your affections, your attentions, to yours, am beholden.

a *****, well respected man in daylight,
the hidden references accuse,
woke up to see Wednes-day Caesarian born,
askance glanced at the prior passages of the night before,
when my palate clefted,
when eyes chose not to distinguish
between right and lefted,
in the nightlight,
a ***** man disrespects language convection/convention,
and lays before you activating stanzas and his mind, prone,
but always the truth, speaking,
the visions, leaking, mind to eye,
recombinant, into our minds eye.




^ http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/on-view/james-turrell


Rather than write extensive notes on the many references, inspirations in this poem, if there is a line that intrigues, ask me
spooky doopy Dec 2014
I am cab ma, please
don’t! Is I, lass, I who brought
scald without such pains.

I am mumbling
coherently a ******
most apparently.

Phospholipids leave
envelope area soon
endoplasmic doom.

Opened neutral taste
I’m sinking in laughing at
something sunken in.

What hell overwhelm
brings ribosome organelle
use geared hither, tell?

Seceded certain
atoms like Democritus
withdrew incursion.

Truncated heavy
organelles under tissue
systems use cycles.

Half polypeptide
accents intergenetic
nuclear spaces.
Left Foot Poet Jun 2017
one would think these old owls might have learned
a hoot of wisdom, and shut off the bright lights,
concisely concession con-seceded to the simple *******
of the union of the night and moon, its sleep crowning ownership
of these particular hours

let me not false claim that I speak for all the grandfathers,
nor raise myself as a caesar among them,
for there are too many shrieking claimants of all knowing,
know-nothings these troubling days

no longer do we revere or agree upon
the certainty of any incontrovertible self-evident,
truths and beauty we from early ancestors inherited,
fore-seeing the risky possibilities of a freedom-less future,
a melting planet without enough air or water to be shared
for our fast contentedly, asleep babies

no, no, I speak only for myself, and those few million of grandfathers who message each other in the wee hours about silly trivial concerns that keep them awake and writing foolish poems
3:08am nml
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2014
return voyage,
window seat,
trapped but nonetheless neat,
the views anticipated,
the route, north/south,
Eastern Seaboard, on the right,
don't need no GPS,
just a flotation-in-case device
under my **** cheeks

the local barge pilot
sent back to port,
now, the pilot~poetry commander  
in charge,
now piloting
this body, this ship,
over interstate global waters

my censorship overridden,
watching words flower,
in a daze of self-formation,
my input,
torn-out by force,
brain clamped,
seceded unwillingly from the
united state of the brain~body
of my republic

off to the far right
thru white haze,
the coastline, pointing,
an arrow head directing,
homeward bound

see further the water's edge,
wide but still bounded
by a somewhere-out-there horizon,
a glazed vanilla cloud bank
demarcating the end of the world,
for surely,
this cloud line thickened
over shadowed by
rainbow shades of only blue,
for this is where the cartoon sign is
perma-posted,
the one that appears always saying
The End!

beneath a complexity too much to explain,
lies a jigsaw puzzle incapable of ever being
disassembled and reassembled,
so fine are the parts and pieces,
of this land

roads like capillaries,
over and through fall earthy browns,
connecting mini homes,
an occasional clustering,
all set down scattershot,
randomness of guard-posts
over endless cultivations,
some linear, most not,
but all irregular,
as if the toy designer,
drew a landscape with
intent to cause or replicate
human madness at its tiniest,
its finest

periodically, the sea
invades the land, net casting,
subdividing naturally
the subdivisions human,
into islands and lines
of rivers so bent and curlicued,
they too,
cannot be conked,
their single hair straightened

where I am I so do not know,
guesses are hazardous,
so I make one,
Virginia perhaps?

Of course, I am incorrect.

from my perch in seat 12F,
I see a noon-day moon, halved,
observing me and vice versa,
sneaky uncensored notions
periodically sneak in,
causing poetic commotions

does the moon write like me
of what it sees,
or it is an inured sophisticate,
the daily astounding of earth's
mysteries innate, just commonplace,
a regular, serialized TV show?

below clouds cumulus, cumulative,
the kinds superhero's rest upon,
a white blanketed shelf of
fluff obscures the land,
the irony for those flying above this
delish
most relished,
blue skies above me,
a white wonder of
fuzzy cotton ball
underneath me,
which to those hapless earth creatures
is just
but,
another cloudy day

all is lost.

the captain speaks,
descent imminent,
control soon to be
returned to the
fool in seat 12F
the guy that did not write this poem,
but that other fool,
some dumb doppelgänger thinking,
a vista was his and
needed sharing

soon he will be concreted,
his flesh moved like a chess pawn
gliding in and on mass machines,
to move his essence to a specified
confinement cell,
from which
this essay will be reviewed,
wonderment,  who,
who riposted this travelogue
while his hands were tied and bound

for only an innocent can be so
wildly moved, wilderness bewildered,
natural emotions run ramped
from ends to endless,
only hopefuls see horizons,
and what lies above
cloudy grey ceilings,
while below,
in land of
asphalt green and work,
where bills due, obligations a must,
responsibilities that crush,
and so

his innocence is shelved,
wonder is a child's task,
not his,
his are chosen by
clock and calendar,
and flying is an excuse,
to get away,
not a place to get to...

and he wonders who wrote this eloquey,
while he observes rows of rows of
single family homes,
tall buildings and a Brooklyn Bridge,
a Central Park and even his home,
hard upon the East River,
while landing,
finally,
he espys

this place,
this isle,
Manhattan

it  is his brick and mortar,
the stuff of what and where
he lives,
like everyone else,


*on just another cloudy day
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/961704/a-prayerpoem-of-air-turbulence-and-thanksgiving/
A Prayer~Poem: Of Air, Turbulence and Thanksgiving
another Thanksgiving,
another voyage in the rareified
l'air au-dessus,
the air above,
next to, amidst
the satisfying but untouchable still,
the gray-white of the clouds of which we so oft
exclaim, and always fail,
to do justice by

this time the
turbulence
within
compulsion beating
compels this thanksgiving addition
to the compilation of airplane poems

the pointer finger tapping
out this journey's record,
a priori, gold leafed,
added, inscribed,
on the priory wall
of other journeys,
even before
it was conceptually written

the pointer finger tapping
upon your own chest,
calming the beating turbulence
ever present, a giving present
to me,
red wrapped

no whining!

I promise myself,
to promise you,
cause if this be,
the best poem
I ever write
(why not, could it not be this one?)

a small prayer shawl supplication,
shall not be marred,
with plaints and requests,
visions and incisions,
the beseeching distaste of
be and re quests,
this one simple,
even, and as always,
a tad odd like me

I am just an ordinary Joe,
flying over the middle,
the country, the real one,
no megabytes
amidst the real,
a few hundred other supplicants,
gaily glad on a mostly
head-phoned, protected silent passage,
over water, land, rivers, and family clans,
all engaged and presaged by
calendal X marked to make ,
a Mecca trip,
a Jerusalem western walled, holy mount,
which ironically is for me is
direction relative,
that bastion of flesh and sinners,
the city of tan men
and salt pillared women,
the City of Miami

whoa, real turbulence
makes the typos egregious, plentiful,
and the body sways,
left to rightly,
the poem is compulsed
urgent flown to completion
(amazing the shaking and the stirring,
to the point of locating the airbag)
perhaps, he thinks, someone in this
airy residence doe not want this prayer
finished

enough.

"The Prayer~Poem of Seat 25D"

Dear Deity of Whatever Name:

We humans peculiar to some places,
set aside a day, this week
for being superlative,
for looking inward and do
quiet summary addition,
employing organs,
as many as necessary,
noses and toeses external,
organs invisible internal,
a counting to make,
to number what we are,
isolating the better reasons,
why our existence justified

we do it in
foolish human ways,
as is our nature,
human and fools interchangeably
one and the same

So this one man counts
his words, ever careful,
ever plentiful,
and utters grace,
the Bene and the Blessing,
quiet inside,
his fellow airplane passengers
holy unawares,
that he is praying for them
simply saying this

May each one pause,
even for a second,
and collect the moment,
understanding,
that thankful is a
but half a notion,
incomplete unless
it is given
away to another,
by making it
selfless



in the air over the Georgia/Florida border
Seat 25c
trf Dec 2016
Crackling. Rocking. Crackling. Creaking and oscillating, a century old **Mahogany Wood seceded to the paSsage of time.
Particles of sand, confounded by the Peninsula’s chaotic, blasting breeze now revealed a shade of burnt tar.
   Outside of the second floor Maissonette, sways the rocking chair once warmed by Grandpa.
A Tactless, impatient, rhythmic Requiem Bashes near the wiNdow pane as the sunset falls Under the frame.  
                                                        ­    Empty Folklore presides like the Residue of a once lambent effigy…                                               SwOosh. Hush!
           Cocktails were a Preamble to lunch like diabetes to Nephropathy.
Corrosive Rhetoric seeped in to expose the ego of a Sommelier.
     A smile would Parachute down when you needed it like Nicotine to remind that no Precedent had been set, just an Anomaly.
                     Cutthroat beginnings, this was no Analog man.
        In grade school his Cosmos found Zion and “The world to come”.
        This baby’s Cradle, abandoned High atop a mountain was blown by a Chinook towards the Atlantic.
                “I was found swallowed in a stained Table cloth by Balkan children on a treasure hunt, with no Guarantee and no resignatIon. "
                     The boTtle narrates these chronicles and a smile parachutes down when you need it like nicotine.
                                          Dionysus Crafted his accounts while most Garnered his spiels with Snide.                               As they witnessed dream remembrance; he thought his memory was Presumably accurate, and although his tales were triFling to the gathering audience, they became his Heliocentric history.
            Calling me a young Galleon and handing me a map, Grandpa scanned his hand across the vast land
       guaranteeing trEasure would be found if I had no resignation.
               This Asinine assertion to my teenage sister Symbolized the Barring of her unheeding imagination by time and then a smile parachuted down just when she needed it like nicotine.


_TRF
In the bathroom of a pizza parlor there was an elongated, framed b&w; picture of the periodical table of elements. I took a picture of it and my flash glared in the middle which I thought looked neat so I manipulated the image so it was skewed and a little blurry and the above elements were the only ones that I could actually see from the photo. Credit to Breaking Bad.
BlakOps Feb 2012
Drum up the emoticons of Tweeners
Lost between the couch cushions
Smoking on Cush,
                               Listening to lines of lying lions.
No soul,
             Symbols twisted into idols
Non-paralleled,
                         Prophets for profit
Refusal to obey convention
Convection will guarantee a feature flight
                                   To where?
                                    I don't know.
                                   Nowhere near never, never land
                                   The fall will forever fragment followers
                                   Peons of lies, hope, and mirrors
                                   Cause is not lost, for change
                                   Moons tide motions for…
The ebb of conscious thought, drowning the flow of seceded freedoms.
Critique is welcomed.
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2016
~for bd~

there is a well in our backyard,
a cooperative well of sorts,
for the water source is a
earth stream deep, an east-west latitudinal,
attitudinal canal,
well traversed, intercontinental and interoceanic,
belonging to no one, free to those who
drink with their eyes

given its diversity,
it's salty sweet earthy soiled provenance,
strike me strange, strikes me well,
its fiercest flavor is its
mundanity,
the plainest cool of tasteless, clear, fresh water,
so easy taken for granted

but therein lies the rub,
for the mundane is the gold vein,
from which we mine our greatest stories,
the best crumbs,
the mineral origins of our words,
to capture the gift of needed inspirational,
for our daily living hymnal
songbook

the aging parental care-taking
wisely and sadly seceded,
the golden child learns lessons of
illness and passing, renewal and replacement,
how to mourn and how to love anew,
when one pet goes, and another comes to
roost and roam in his youthful heart,
and a lover ages and so does she,
for tandem is the ever-changing, graying color of their
fierce attached tenacity

a professor supervises the household management,
grading student papers, grading life,
secretly writing love paeans to celebrate
what it's all about, the visible so oft ignored,
recorded, recored, reordered,
in the observatory of
bed crumb starry words

I,
a stranger never to be seen,
a million miles from the scene,
smile and weep, loving the shallow for its deep,
finding amazement in the complexity
that only humans have the capacity to commit,
all of us captains of the capital we store,
in the small hallmarks of every day living,
and in an overdue,
catchup e-transmission,
a well wish comes true,
a poem born,
a kindness to myself,
the best gift of and to,
those who are both,
well,
friends and strangers

who remind us that hope too,
is a
well

~~~~~
The Message

Hello Natty man....we are all well...but it has been a busy and difficult year, Mum finally went into residentail care, very busy at work, the golden boy grows in leaps and bounds, my surfer dude grows more grey hairs as do I....sadly there has been a shift change in the demigods of the house the little blue cat, got sick (bowel cancer)...and after much heartache..we made the decision to let him go with dignity and he was put to sleep...We are now presided over by a little tuxedo boy (still a devon rex)....whose energy is sometimes insurmountable....he and the golden boy have bonded....*

hope all is well your end
Take care...and be kind to you
I read a message, I write a poem...
Carrillo Feb 2017
An inquisitive mind—flourished from oppression into a cave as rich as Reed mine
Where tourists can flood my thoughts
Pick at my gold and sell it for their lives
Stabilizing their own
While weakening my historic rise
Greed increases, and relationships are seceded
Because everyone wants to obtain sacred pieces

 
Wandering through pixels of distorted visions
Gatherers become hunters
Painting with blood, their own ambitions
Setting standards for the continuing generations
In turn, a figurative genocide
For the sake of remaining proclamations
Paralyzing, terrorizing, and destroying indifferent others

 
If time manipulates unfortunate events, perhaps the solution
Is just the opposite
Creatures of habit soon face an evolution
Once protagonists reach a state of lucid retribution
It defines them as antagonists playing a role of uncanny acts
The renowned vigilantes use time as their sword
To reenact their own demise and call unto their lord


Scattered within the affluent cave
The people and their children
And their children's children
Are enslaved, digging their own graves while being influenced by vacuous hopes and darkened shapes
The repetitive motions devolved into psychopathic notions
They attempted to escape but were punished for breaking the rotation
Whipped, humiliated, and shamed
The cave insulated the pain
By offering priceless artifacts
Within my knowledgeable den
Yvonne May 2017
Here today, in hell tomorrow.
If wisdom leads me there, I won't feel sorrow.

If the man who wanders in darkness
is ready to take my carcass

My body decayed by nature
my soul released in danger.

When the moon if fading out
and my brains are aroused.

When my existence is no longer needed
and stupidity at last seceded.
c Apr 2018
We danced, the cognate vessels
Nested in walls &
Cowered in blood

We buried love deep into
Beating flesh &
Writhed In Utero

We emptied veins of reason
Laid in torment &
Seceded in white gowns

We--Empiric experiments
We--Deficient devices
We--Thrashing threadbare

We--Womb
We--Woman

--
c
I was recently researching the term "hysteria", and the dark history that follows it. Stripped to its Greek roots, it essentially equates to "crazy woman". Doctors used this term to diagnose women & commit them as psychologically disturbed. They also used it to describe a woman while she was menstruating. It's worth looking into.
His season o' sorrows had seceded;
- the joy crept in reluctant an' slow, though,
- because he was aware the cycle'll be repeated.
Yay- t'was one thing that he did, certainly, know:
- that - with the blustery an' bone chilling snow
- will be brought along another season o' sorrow.
For now, though, he'll enjoy the golden suns glow.
March Twenty-Fifth, Two-Thousand an' Seventeen
wichitarick Dec 2017
DREAM LOCKDOWN

We let our minds play fancy, not reaching in to deep just gently dancing

Strolling along ,riding astride in a cautious glide,mimicking many nights before

Locked in a sterile rhythm  avoiding a mental collision,softly we stay prancing

Destiny never asked for, now never answered,nothing lost, nothing to restore

Drift into the night no interest in former plight,simply never know what the future is planning

Remember those VIVID visions,not lost still interned,left inside for us to deplore

Relaxing  pleasantly  lacking contention ,easily laying down without becoming draining

Blind to what is outside the walls ,shielded from the abyss not seeking to explore

Meek mild not thinking to wild ,pillows our new protection marking twilight without explaining

Will it be cheating if not recreating, unexplained actions as if being forced to recall such gore

Playing along is not wrong ,we have not seceded or been defeated, but managing to live and learn as we are changing. R.C.
Thought of more in reverse of "normal" thoughts of having a nightmare but how we might have come to live with them , Yrs of nightmares left me never knowing anything?just hid from them,confronting it all and learning then knowing myself was the hard and now the best part. But never a fool "it" is all still there.  Thanks for reading your thoughts are helpful. Rick
Leay Sep 2016
Weathered,  worn and shaken.
I saw and felt. I wish never again these pangs.

You saw and responded, you seceded from.
You receeded from pain.
You of gain

This is mine
This is ours
This we meet again

Hours,years. How I go,
availe myself.
Undressed in humility.

We're If I not, who is at fleeting and false of self.
Of Wolf an will

Words of comfort are jagged tooth and claw
Words of truth and mau

Reckless
Resonate
Repeat

I am not retreat
My retinas severed one weary, darkened night,
I could no longer stand in my own fright,
My cuticles lost to some melancholy lore
Flipping through pages I used to adore,
The blanching of the atoms, each and every cell within,
I could not hope to pursue what lies therein,
Some weakened, hollow shell of the man I used to be,
I would keep looking for you,
But, alas, I cannot see.
I once thought that my mind would eat itself,
Every forlorn synapse, fighting amongst themselves,
When the doubt came clouded, and my head gave in to rot,
The rain became too crowded, each drop is what I sought,
The creation of this December, so cold and without morn,
Gave birth to iced embers somewhere inside to scorn,
I personified malice and yet still my hatred grew,
All but one living thing I wanted to undo,
I wanted you to see me at my most evil worst,
I wanted you to breathe my name as curse,
But now that I have seceded to the inner most retainer,
I see how worthless the person is your body keeps contained here,
Your **** heart locks love like loose lace,
Spilled wind chills fill your killed embrace,
The frail, pale gales pierce your assailed bones,
As your ****-shining ship sinks, think of home.
mia May 2018
there was I time when i first met you
I didn't realize my feelings for you
but now that i see you everyday at school i realize i do
i am so sorry if that up sets you but please just try to
understand if you can  
but when i am with you it seems like no one else is here
sorry if you don't understand i tried to make it so you would
but i don't always seceded in what i intend
T R S Jul 2019
Littered in a spilled pile of nose bleeds...
Still...
I'm sorry.
I seceded for a bone pile.

Beguiled by huge head and lightning
it seems that only strawberry swirls
could unfurl a white mans bleeding heart.
Satsih Verma Apr 15
I would take a call
after I seceded from my wounds.
It took me a while to become Buddha.

You outshine, being
a wave breaker. I touch the
stars to squeeze light from dark curves.

Will you remain
vegetable? Your fingers play
like the blind pianist on my face.
Preface:
On February 4, 1861,
the seven states that had seceded
by this point convened and created
the Confederate States of America
under the leadership of Jefferson Davis.

Just under two months later,
on April 12, 1861, Confederate forces
opened fire on Union-occupied
Fort Sumter off the South Carolina coast.

Starting but not completely reading a book...
tantamount to being sacrilegious,
especially when storied subject matter
deals with heated issue as slavery,
which essentially succinctly describes
war between the states
(purportedly started April 12, 1861 –
and reputedly ended April 9, 1865)
allegedly triggered
at 4:30 ante meridian on April 12, 1861,
when Confederate troops fired
on Fort Sumter
in South Carolina's Charleston Harbor.

Less than 34 hours later,
Union forces surrendered.

Traditionally, this event used to signify
the beginning of the Civil War.

Self imposed onerous obligation
understanding difficult to comprehend
thought provoking printed material
subsequently generated
system of the down overload
mine (myopic) eyes see the words,
but their meaning doth not compute,
especially when an author
chooses to write

in a bewildering, style,
thus "Abort, Retry, Fail?"
(or "Abort, Retry, Ignore?")
an error message
found in DOS operating systems,
which prompts the end-user
for a course of action arises
within sixty plus shades
of gray matter within me mind.

At present my fascination and interest
with American history temporarily appeased,
whence yours truly
envisions himself a Yankee
in the Antebellum North
thirstily drinking information
detailing one figurative chapter
concerning, detailing, giving
The Civil War breadth,
scope, width, et cetera
a narrative spanning
Fort Sumter to Perryville
painstakingly written
by the late Shelby Dade Foote.

An overactive imagination of mine
easily populated with sights, smells, and sounds
linkedin to that rebellion
(as ascribed by Abraham Lincoln)
witnessing the secession
of South Carolina followed
by the secession of six more states—
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia,
Louisiana, and Texas–
and the threat of secession by four more—
Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.

These eleven states eventually
formed the Confederate States of America.

Though the internecine fighting
weathered the test of eighty seven years
since July 2, 1776, when
the Second Continental Congress,
meeting in Philadelphia,
voted unanimously to declare independence
as the "United States of America".
Two days later, on July 4,
Congress signed the Declaration of Independence.

The Second Continental Congress
not initially formed to declare independence.

****** battlegrounds
minted ******* military men,
which soldiers when not fighting
sang sentimental tunes
about distant love—the popular
“Lorena” and “Aura Lee”
(which in the twentieth century
became “Love Me Tender”)
and “The Yellow Rose of Texas”—
and songs of loss such as
“The Vacant Chair.”

Other tunes commemorated victory—
“Marching Through Georgia”
considered a vibrant evocation of Sherman's ...
March to the Sea.

Some even sprouted from prison life,
such as "*****, *****, *****."

Soldiers marched to the rollicking
“Eatin’ Goober Peas;”
they vented their war-weariness with “Hard Times;
” they sang about their life
in “Tenting Tonight on the Old Camp Ground;
” they were buried to the soulful strains of “Taps,”
written for the dead of both sides
in the Seven Days’ Battles.

When the guns stopped,
the survivors returned
to the haunting notes of
“When Johnny Comes Marching Home.”

— The End —