Veteran's Day --a poem

A SALUTE

It's Veteran' Day, and in my mind
I see the flags and guns aligned,
parading down the thoroughfare,
cheers and chanting everywhere.

With wholeness gone, but proud and free,
from wheelchair, an amputee
waves tearfully, perhaps through pain,
and hopes it was not all in vain,
his sacrifice.

Memories--still vivid--swirl,
blitzing those who served at Pearl;
the Rangers now, though all old men,
smile proudly as they think again
of Normandy.

Gunner's mates, ensigns and chiefs
remember all their various griefs
and hells, awaking still to screams
of slogging through the swamp in dreams
of Vietnam.

Returned to glorious accolades,
the troops of Desert Storm parade,
proud of their work in blinding sands,
defending Kuwait's borderlands
on Persia's Gulf.

And in my mind's projection room,
I hear the drum's resounding boom,
reminding me of sacrifice,
of pain and death: the awesome price
of freedom.

c 2011 Pat Laster dba lovepat press

A RAFT OF NEW CINQUAINS

Speaking
to the deceased
in obituaries
is becoming more commonplace
nowdays.
~~~

The sad
hanging basket
of Mom's old begonia
finally showing some delicate
pink buds.
~~~

Workers
at Gettysburg
found Civil War bullets
while cutting a fallen oak on
Culp's Hill.
~~~

Buried
artillery
shells still viable all
these decades since the Vietnam
"conflict."
~~~

Polar
bears outnumber
folks in Norway's Arctic
Svalbard. Bear attacks killed one lad,
alas.
~~~

Some folks
are making good
money stealing copper
from churches. Have they no respect
for God?

c 2011 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press