My husband's poetry

Category: history

  • Upon a hill

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    by

    cfblack
    in , , , ,

    Upon a hill there stands a house, Windows gaze out softly on the farm, Dawn wakes quiet as a mouse. Furrows stitch fields like hems on a blouse Each row a hymn, each row a psalm, Upon a hill there stands a house. Winds over hay, a gentle spouse, Lingers warm, protective and calm, Dawn…

  • Akkadian bricks

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    by

    cfblack
    in , ,

    in the annuals of men I read atrocities numbers of dead names of survivors who they were does not exist broken refashioned in fire their history hidden in the glazing who they were does not exist living is not survival names of dead numbers of living who they were does not exist 9-8-25

  • May Day 1971, Washington, DC

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    by

    cfblack
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    Talking to myself, I asked myself, do you remember that day in May, that day in 1971, fortified with cannabis, when you thought skinny-dipping out of a cherry tree into the Tidal Basin was somehow an act of incredible bravery and defiance against Nixon’s war machine. Covered in trash and muck you walked naked through…

  • For Mussolini’s partisans

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    by

    cfblack
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    How many souls have perished, because someone else believed war and violence was the answer and the working class must kill each other to prove their point? If you are going to suffer and die for someone else’s folly, it does not matter how you die, don’t be a tool of their oppression and take…

  • Questions for my ancestor

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    by

    cfblack
    in ,

    When did the first fish crest spy the shore and believe dry land was an option? And how many generations before that first step and how many more generations until cruise ships became all the rage? 4-14-25

  • Ice houses

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    by

    cfblack
    in ,

    Who cut the last ice block from the river before compressors and Freon made him obsolete? Did he find a new career or blame it on someone else, sulk among relics and try to turn back time? What of the saws, the wagons, the horses and ice houses half buried in the sod? Move to…

  • 60 years on

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    by

    cfblack
    in , ,

    Sixty years on I wonder what white Cubans And black Cubans think of Batista What stories grandfathers and grandmothers Washed and served with salad greens At dinner tables in Cuba and America What did parents teach their children And what do children know of truth? Sixty years on I wonder what white Cubans And black…

  • St. George’s lament

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    by

    cfblack
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    lizard on fence rail dark in long shadows green among the vines did you know my forefathers hid among vines from your forefathers before stars fell from the sky before the burning before the long winter came before the dying before their bones became dragon’s lore 6-26-21

  • reading Odysseus

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    by

    cfblack
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    I feel sorry for Penelope Ten years warring Ten years wandering And no one knows for sure Suitors come daily Walk through her door Demand she chose One of them to marry She knows they don’t love her Lust for her in the night Like great Odysseus They only want to be king 4-16-21

  • Diary from solitaire

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    by

    cfblack
    in , ,

    Think these bars…..pillars Live in a plantation mansion Lie about all day No one interrupts your reveries Clean clothes and linen You promenade the halls Guards serve you hand and foot Cuisine in need of a better chef 3-18-21 *note from wife: no idea what tags to put w/ this one