Friday, November 25, 2011

DELAYED THANKSGIVING


Plus ça change

Those savages may not
have a written language
but they'll understand,
Miles standish said, as
he mounted Wituwamat's
hear on a pike by the gate.
Terror unto others,
Governor Bradford wrote.

We'd call it making a statement, 
diplomacy by drones.

I had intended to post this with new verse news but Jim remembered, and I didn't, that he had used a slightly different version five years ago. So much for memorable poems.

Friday, November 11, 2011

VETERANS DAY 11/11/2011


Veteran's Day

In the outskirts of small cities and towns
in the boot-leather tough American heart-land
from Iowa to Idaho where the suburbs quickly
fade into prairie, barrens or bad-lands you
may see our national bird, the bald eagle, perched
on the rim of rusty dumpsters in the hunt
for commercial carrion. They show the same
"make-do, can-do" spirit that made America
a great nation, showing the same adaptability
and persistence of pioneer spirit as our
homeless veterans bivouacked under bridge
abutments and vacant lots across the country.



[POSTED TODAY ON NEWVERSENEWS]