The Master Teaches

David R. Evans 1948 (Washington)



They say you know war
Sun Tzu.

Homer,
Thucydides,
Alexander
Sparta and Athens.
The Greeks
smashing their way home.

Honor sacrificial warrior's blood
at Thermopylae.
Blood also nourished
Catherine's Persia lust.
 
The crush at Waterloo
 
Punitive Ashes of Savanna,
Atlanta.
 
Splintered forests of Argonne, Verdun,
The Somme
And Devil Dog blood
mixed in Belleau Wood.
 
Ice both sides
of Leningrad walls
and bloated Marine's
red tropic lagoons.
Crematoriums Dresden
Hiroshima
Nagasaki.
 
Frozen Chosin; bodies
stacked like cordwood
 
Cratered Hanoi
Broken helicopters
litter jungle hills
 
The slaughter of hungry campesinos,
and their children of the land.
Raped nuns
notched on gun stocks.

Dead Balkan states still mourn
as Balkanized Arab states still bleed
from the slave whip
of ZioJew masters of perpetual chaos,
and Fallujah; phosphor-burned to the bone.
 
On it goes
from dawn to dusk of man.
You taught too well, Sun Tzu.

About this poem

Mired in the unforgiving mud of war.

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Written on March 15, 2019

Submitted on October 09, 2021

Modified on April 26, 2023

43 sec read
3

Quick analysis:

Scheme XA BABAAC DEXX E FF XCDX AAAAXFX AD XAA AXAA XXXAX AXA
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 880
Words 143
Stanzas 12
Stanza Lengths 2, 6, 4, 1, 2, 4, 7, 2, 3, 4, 5, 3

David R. Evans

David Evans was awakened to the power of poetry by a “tough guy” high school English teacher who had an eye gored out in a college football game. Mr. Rice made it clear that poetry was for tough guys too. David’s later experiences as a US Marine warrior confirms that. He says, “Poetry nurtures the wounded soul”. As a member of Veterans For Peace, David spends much of life working to educate others about the game of Empire, and the unacceptable human cost of war. He says he “resides on land stolen from Native Americans, just north of Vancouver Washington.” more…

All David R. Evans poems | David R. Evans Books

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    Quiz

    Are you a poetry master?

    »
    Which female American poet, who was little-known during her lifetime, but had nearly 1800 of her poems published posthumously, rarely titled her poems?
    A Sara Teasdale
    B Emily Dickinson
    C Amy Lowell
    D Sylvia Plath