Captain Daniel Anderson
Stood before the 3rd infantry
And called out, “Men, a moment!
“We’ll soon meet destiny.
“Be brave! Be bold! Remember
“That we served each other well.
“Now on we go to victory
“Or tonight we’ll dine in Hell!”
Well Captain Daniel Anderson
And the 3rd infantry fought
With tooth and nail, but doomed to fail;
Their efforts came to naught.
So once again he called out
“We did all that we could do.”
Then they sat for dinner
At a party thrown by you.
Filed under Poems
It’s not because she loved him
That she held the stranger’s hand
As she stepped aboard the Gallant
Which would take her from the land
Where the nightly cold and hunger
And the daily war and tears
Were all she’d ever known about
For all her 16 years.
It’s not because of longing
That she watched the coastline fade
As the sounds of need grew silent
Beneath the ocean’s serenade,
And it wasn’t to remember
That she fumbled through the sack
That contained some dirty souvenirs
The few she’d time to pack.
She held and she remembered
And she watched and she was sad
To lose her lonely, painful home:
All that she ever had.
It wasn’t for nostalgia
That she spent her many nights
Remembering the land of famine
Where she had no rights
Even though she had a new home
In a land of peace and rain.
It was simply that she knew
She’d never see that home again.
She held on and remembered
Before she slept, and she was glad
To now be somewhere better
Than the only home she’d had.
The refugee became a nurse
By the time she was all grown
In the only land of promise
That she had ever known.
She helped the people coming
From the homes they left behind
Who, like her, were forever
With their homelands intertwined.
Still she held on and remembered
To now distant fear and strife
And she turned her eyes to helping
Others make a better life.
She never knew the gentleman
Who held her hand that year
With the eyes that stared uncertainly
At his passing drawing near,
But she whispered to him gently
Through the hours of the night:
When you leave a home of pain behind
You’ll go somewhere alright.
He held on and remembered
And saw and understood
And closed his eyes and sailed off
To somewhere that was good.
Filed under Poems
Whenever Italy gets attacked
Someone must fell Rome,
Someone conquers Cicily,
Burns a Venetian home…
Yes, in an Italian conquest
These sackings are the staples
But a satisfying extra
Is somebody licked their Naples.
Filed under Poems
Private Johnson swam onto
The beach at Normandy.
I’ll not describe the horrors
Which that soldier had to see.
He killed opposing soldiers
Because command insisted.
Imagine how it would have been
If video games existed…
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To the victor go the spoils,
The diamonds and the oils,
The right to raise a flag above
A world that’s not their own.
To the losers, the defeated,
Goes an anger ever-heated,
Simmering for generations
Within each descendant’s bone.
To the watchers, the supporters,
Pulling strings and giving orders
Goes a power of oppression
And, with it, endless pain.
To the peaceful, to the no one,
Goes the best life in the long run,
Remembered in the darkness
Which always will remain.
Filed under Poems
The waves were crashing on the shore;
It was a lovely sight.
The fireflies caroused with me
Amidst the starry night.
The sand, still warm with faded sun,
Was soft beneath my feet.
Then my house was firebombed
By the US Pacific Fleet.
Filed under Poems
Today we thank the eager few
Who gave their lives for me and you,
Who walked through fire, blood, and steel
Knowing well how it would feel,
Enduring all put in their path,
Both human fear and nature’s wrath.
They kept their word and walked the walk
‘Cause politicians wouldn’t talk.
Tomorrow we will thank the few,
Among their number maybe you,
Who stood their ground and bravely said
“We do not want our children dead.”
“We do not need what others own.
We welcome strangers to our home.
The cause of each and every war
Are those in whom our power we store.”
Today remember soldiers late
So those to come won’t share their fate.
There’ll be no “Those who came before”
When humankind says “no” to war.
Filed under Poems
Amid a thousand oceans
Each a million miles wide,
In a world of fire and darkness
Wherein countless billions died,
A world of steel and angels
Where dragons fill the sky
There lives alone amidst the trees
One totally normal guy.
And as the forests rise into
The universe above
And about him rages endless war,
Between hatred and love,
Surrounded by heroic few
Defenders of what’s right
He lies back on his sofa bed
And tells himself “Good night.”
Saints are slain and martyrs made,
The underworld calls those
Whom destiny has newly bade
To be those whom death chose
Mountains crumble feebly
And utopias collide
And that single lonely sofa man
Just mumbles, “Hey, I tried.”
And though he never earned a place
Among the Gods or Lords of Deep
He ate a balanced diet
And always got a good night’s sleep.
Filed under Poems
Imagine a world
With doubt, fear, or hate,
Where all have a warm bed
And a full dinner plate,
Where soft is the water
And fertile the soil.
Now let’s bomb that place
And steal their oil!
Filed under Poems
The wealthy and the powerful
In conflict did divide
To play a game of endless war
In which the commons died
For when egos battle
And at the heart of every war:
The rich, you’ll find, will seldom mind
The dying of the poor.
Filed under Poems
The Daily Travesty 