That's what I thought in those final moments-
If only I had studied harder and learned
by heart the declensions of Latin
...
Instead of wearing combat boots
trucking through the sands of Iraq
or the snow of the Ardennes in forty-four
...
I suppose if you didn't know better
you may have thought in your innocence
that all we had to do as soldiers
was fall out in good order for inspection
...
Of course you know that your words
flow freely through cyberspace
and might be garbled
as words always are and will be
...
There they sit
each one hunched before the screen
egged on by notions of poetic glory
as they mimic
...
I thought of you this morning
and imagined you
in a diaphonous peignoir
greeting me,
...
I suppose some of you versifiers
think the use of the f-word
puts that extra zing
in your lines
...
Soldiers fall out for inspection
on the company street
and count off ONE! TWO! THREE!
...
Some versifiers on this site
think using obscenity
puts a zing
in lame lines
...
In a land far from here
where spirits roam freely
and the trees are green
on ochre fields of grain
...