INFANTRY COLUMNS
We're foot--slog--slog--slog--sloggin' over Africa --
Foot--foot--foot--foot--sloggin' over Africa --
(Boots--boots--boots--boots--movin' up an' down again!)
There's no discharge in the war!
Seven--six--eleven--five--nine-an'-tw enty mile to-day --
Four--eleven--seventeen--thirty-two the day before --
(Boots--boots--boots--boots--movin' up an' down again!)
......
A soldier lad lay dreaming,
Near a battlefield one day,
In his mind he was scheming,
How to win victory.
He heard his captain calling,
"Rise and fire rapidly",
Then he began bawling,
"Yes Sir, right away".
......
Waiting for the end, boys, waiting for the end.
What is there to be or do?
What’s become of me or you?
Are we kind or are we true?
Sitting two and two, boys, waiting for the end.
Shall I build a tower, boys, knowing it will rend
Crack upon the hour, boys, waiting for the end?
Shall I pluck a flower, boys, shall I save or spend?
All turns sour, boys, waiting for the end.
......
When Mother divorced you, we were glad. She took it and
took it in silence, all those years and then
kicked you out, suddenly, and her
kids loved it. Then you were fired, and we
grinned inside, the way people grinned when
Nixon's helicopter lifted off the South
Lawn for the last time. We were tickled
to think of your office taken away,
your secretaries taken away,
your lunches with three double bourbons,
......
And when, in the city in which I love you,
even my most excellent song goes unanswered,
andI mount the scabbed streets,
the long shouts of avenues,
and tunnel sunken night in search of you...
That I negotiate fog, bituminous
rain rining like teeth into the beggar's tin,
or two men jackaling a third in some alley
weirdly lit by a couch on fire, that I
......
In shadows deep where quiet whispers dwell,
The water flows with secrets of the past,
A mirror holds the tales that none can tell,
Yet in its depths, our fragile fates are cast.
As flames arise in fervent, wild embrace,
They devour dreams, turn laughter into ash,
While water cools the heat of lost disgrace,
In turbulent streams, our sorrows clash.
......
Empress Ladybird lived in Moss Wood, in a huge, hollow of an oak tree;
In domestic comfort, with all her dear children, beyond the entry, leafy.
Empress and her mate had parted, when they'd resolved to move on;
However, she would live to love again, like spring when winter's gone.
Empress was all things that a ruler should be, like Queen Anne's lace-
Always fair and kind to subjects, in the green, forest kingdom of grace.
Fireflies and frogs made up the forest family, and visited at olive even,
......
Awaken, you who is kept
buried under mountains of water.
Cast down from empty sky; set alight and
burnt. You chose to drench yourself and
run away from flames chained to you.
But now you sit, singled and desperate,
hoping for nothing at the bottom of
this ocean.
I see green holes in you;
......
The sidewalks I was so familiar with are now rushing rivers.
The memories in these corners are fading away.
The air around me burning an invisible fire.
The end is here.
I see myself falling down an invisible cliff.
A never-ending darkness, with a growing fire at the bottom.
A roaring scream erupts as the flames rise to take me far away.
I melted with the fire, igniting my heart into streaks of blues and reds.
I am the fire.
......
Valentine’s Day.
She said no.
And not a nice no, a cold one.
The kind that makes the drive home feel like going to war.
Back then I lived in the basement
With a single egress window that would flood
When the downpour became a torrent.
I saw owl-gray clouds already.
Hell, the snow hadn’t even fully melted
......