BEFORE MEMORIAL DAY

by James Penha

Large group of school children, with their teacher, standing in a town street, circa 1850s. Daguerreotype by an unknown photographer. Original in the Daguerreotypes Collection of the Library of Congress.

Which of these boys
in the back rows shucked
his suit for another uniform, packed
a Remington revolver 1858,
a Colt 1860,
or a Beaumont-Adams,
aimed a Pattern Enfield 1853 rifled musket,
a Springfield 1861,
or an M1841 Mississippi Rifle,
held high a Model 1832 foot Artillery Sword,
a Cutlass, or a Bowie knife,
before he was cranked
and grounded by a Gatling
or by J.D. Mill’s Coffee Mill Gun?

And how
many?

Which of their teachers?

Who among the girls cried
for the dead? Who
among the littler
boys?

Who craved
more?

James Penha edits TheNewVerse.News.

GIVE US OUR DAILY KALASH

by Martha Landman 

 
                  ". . . the world has moved a little." --Phil Kafcaloudes

Peace-time peasants are born ignorant of
the Pill, the Apple Mac and breast implants

Looking like ordinary men they coin money
from vodka, umbrellas and pocket knives. In

honesty, they work for the good of the people.
Iconic, as Gatling and Colt, their Siberian son

receives the Order of Saint Andrew, wrapped in
a Mozambique flag, a hero of socialist labour.

There are no regrets in his photograph or
in poetic dreams buried in shallow graves

where the counterfeit child soldiers of Africa
pray that their crayon boxes be filled with

enough bullets and Big Macs to crack all the
cocaine plants of the world during short break.

If Russia had a Bill Gates they would patent
him Kalashnikov and be proud as a mother

They would let him battle Bryansk and Brody
and decorate him with more than a lawnmower.


Martha Landman lives and writes in tropical North Queensland, Australia. Her most recent work appeared in Poetry 24, Every Day Poets.