Barren Hill



The fire’s gone out
in the last wooden hut
Fresh snow has been falling,
cold hunger abuts

The Red Coats emboldened
in far Germantown
The wind carries stillness,
with death all around

A General stands watch
on the farthest of hills
His heart never waivers,
his anger instills

The firewood gone
but the embers still burn
O’er forests and rivers,
to Paris in turn

The Schuylkill runs quiet,
Lenape scouts have returned
“Our enemy grows fat, Sir,
in taverns that burn”

The outcome awaiting,
its body count high
Where cabins though frozen
—the stars and stripes fly

(Valley Forge: November, 2020)
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Submitted by KurtPhilipBehm on November 20, 2020

Modified by KurtPhilipBehm on November 20, 2020

30 sec read
10

Quick analysis:

Scheme XABX XXXX XCDC XEDE AXFE BGXG F
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 577
Words 101
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 1

Kurt Philip Behm

Longtime writer with twelve books in publication. Three of them Poetry. : The Death Of The Playground : The Sword Of Ichiban : Searching For Crazy Horse : Darkening Sun : An Anthology Of Perception-Vol's 1 & 2 : After Midnight : Sammy And Bumpers : The Fall City Mandate : Revenge Along The War Trail : Death from The Sky more…

All Kurt Philip Behm poems | Kurt Philip Behm Books

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