Trying to save a Lamb from Slaughter

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Gentle lamb I applaud you this eve,

Your voice remains in such a calmed state,

Even after I told you

Would it change perspective?

If you were moved from last to first

A lottery won in reverse,

Would it matter?

If I opened the gate,

And turned my face,

Would you leave then, or would you remain?

I never should have named you,

I never should have watched over you

I never should have loved you like a parent does a son

I can’t disobey; I too am a father’s son

How can what I see as slaughter, you view as duty?

Tell me what to do,

Don’t act like this isn’t happening,

I assure you that time is gone,

We are here,

This is real

Wisdom in a Ballot Box

Absent ballots count just as well

As those punched solid while standing there

As a consequence of actions,

Each tabulated numeral,

Every analytical slant and swerve,

Confidence dwindles patiently

From the creases and the corners,

The here, the now,

The there and the whenever,

Pocahontas in a red dress,

Begging the wolf to return,

A deep rabid river flow,

A titan’s fury bottled to go,

Passionate as a first nights kiss,

These consumptions put weight to voice,

Housed in collapsibility,

Compartmentalized for hairline fractures

Of incomplete sentences,

Come the blank stare, the reader evinces choice,

To Coventry send this whim

A finger unveiled,

 Indicates pulse through indexed rhyme

Mortar Fire and the Sound of Independence (Soldier Chronicle Volume Three)

Mortar fire and the sound of independence

Sky lit in brilliance

Reminds me of our endeavor,

As if I would ever convince myself otherwise

I forgot the names by now,

I wish I would have paid attention

Gave camaraderie a try,

Yet then, well I would also

The beaches coveted the brush,

This jungle from all sides,

Thick entanglements of plants, trees, vines,

And bugs, so many bugs,

Footmarks led pathways I would fear to see,

Who, and what would they steer towards me,

Estranged, weeks perhaps,

How the body changes when left unattended,

My escape was a stumble upon,

Some lucky hacks hidden in the brush,

Tree supporting their covert lifestyle,

Scared kids with ink long gone,

Waiting for a bus to fly them home,

At that point, then,

I offered nothing but a plea to join their crusade,

Most accepting those writers were,

Having me around set them at ease,

Guess they felt safer with a man like me, around,

Appearances cast deeper images than our words suggest,

And the weapon,

I enjoyed their spirits, albeit reminding them it really was myself against,

But their spirits were higher than when I arrived, therefore I didn’t have the

Heart to tell them I was out,

I met them by luck,

But luck is not what got me to them,

It was disobedience that saved my life,

The lieutenant announced we’d be coming in from atop,

Surprise that morning, glory all night,

I explained my ears were keen,

And I know familiar sounds over the hill,

My gut instructed me to disobey what I knew was right,

What I was trained to do,

And so I dropped below as they rose above,

Seconds later I heard the firefight,

I heard the enemy swarm past me, as I hid myself away,

I returned and buried the dead, all of them but myself,

I heard it then I hear it now,

If only I’d listened, the families claim I could have saved them all,

I know better, which is not to say obeying was the wrong command to follow,

Each day now, since then, I see their excitement in their eyes,

For by their hands some unnamed assailants would die,

I tried to explain, I told them, but again I say they were close to one another,

I was merely a clinging shadow, they didn’t care to know, one they avoided

If only I made an attempt perhaps a different ending there would be

To this horrible tale I live to tell.

A Fact

A fact’s a fact, but there’s more than that,

It is not alive, yet sometimes made to be,

Always built with precision, certainty and certitude,

 It can be correlated, filtered or fleshed out,

Depending upon the contour its designers choose,

Advertised in various aggregations, collections and clusters,

Where the larger groups contain many analogues,

The more obscure hold very few,

One can arrange data by infinite design,

From the basic and primitive,

To those with high degrees of interconnectivity,

Conversely affinities, at times, can be seen,

 Promoting chaos and the absolution of scheme entirely,

Then there are those that ignore context,

Taking words from their proper home,

Tweak, tune, buff and hone,

Distorting tense and destroying meaning,

Offering up this amalgamation

The mind is tricked and duped, deceived and lied to,

 Coerced into accepting the authors’ contention,

 Unwittingly conspiring with a fallacious point of view,

But the fact of the matter cannot be skewed,

When held in the framework from where it grew