Lexington and Concord

Today is the anniversaryies of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The following text (in brackets) I have copied and pasted from http://www.history.com./ because my knowledge of the War is scattered. Feel free to read the following at your leisure.

Facts not mentioned:
- New England winters used to be hell on Earth. Now they're just a bit of hell, nothing too big.
- Major John Pitcairn of the British marines thought that the first shot was a flash in the pan fired by a civilian who was watching the battle.
- The war lasted eight years and a few months- we were still fighting battles into the '80s. The war did not end at Yorktown.

[At about 5 a.m., 700 British troops, on a mission to capture Patriot leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal, march into Lexington to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town's common green. British Major John Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment's hesitation the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, the "shot heard around the world" was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead or dying and 10 others were wounded. Only one British soldier was injured, but the American Revolution had begun.

By 1775, tensions between the American colonies and the British government approached the breaking point, especially in Massachusetts, where Patriot leaders formed a shadow revolutionary government and trained militias to prepare for armed conflict with the British troops occupying Boston. In the spring of 1775, General Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, received instructions from England to seize all stores of weapons and gunpowder accessible to the American insurgents. On April 18, he ordered British troops to march against the Patriot arsenal at Concord and capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, known to be hiding at Lexington.

The Boston Patriots had been preparing for such a military action by the British for some time, and upon learning of the British plan, Patriots Paul Revere and William Dawes were ordered to set out to rouse the militiamen and warn Adams and Hancock. When the British troops arrived at Lexington, Adams, Hancock, and Revere had already fled to Philadelphia, and a group of militiamen were waiting. The Patriots were routed within minutes, but warfare had begun, leading to calls to arms across the Massachusetts countryside.

When the British troops reached Concord at about 7 a.m., they found themselves encircled by hundreds of armed Patriots. They managed to destroy the military supplies the Americans had collected but were soon advanced against by a gang of minutemen, who inflicted numerous casualties. Lieutenant Colonel Frances Smith, the overall commander of the British force, ordered his men to return to Boston without directly engaging the Americans. As the British retraced their 16-mile journey, their lines were constantly beset by Patriot marksmen firing at them Indian-style from behind trees, rocks, and stone walls. At Lexington, Captain Parker's militia had its revenge, killing several British soldiers as the Red Coats hastily marched through his town. By the time the British finally reached the safety of Boston, nearly 300 British soldiers had been killed, wounded, or were missing in action. The Patriots suffered fewer than 100 casualties.

The battles of Lexington and Concord were the first battles of the American Revolution, a conflict that would escalate from a colonial uprising into a world war that, seven years later, would give birth to the independent United States of America.]

Etched

That day,
You were carved into the sky
blossoming and black
and acrid.

Around, the people milled about
picked flowers
slipped them into their daughters' hair.
They didn't notice you rising heavenward
in great and powerful plumes.
They haggled over bread,
instead, in coarse and native tonge.

But you,
You were tattooed into that sky,
Something the sky would remember forever,
embarrassed,
as if you were a rash decision,
and ex-lover's name imprinted on his arm.
The sky hides you behind his back,
murmuring, "It's nothing."
Rolling up his blue sleeves.

But it's too late.
I've seen.
And to me, your face is always
carved into the sky.




(Jeez, Abbie, we're a cheerful lot.)

Eyes

Celine
Never really gave much thought to you, did she now?

Amber
Oh hell yah, that bitch is doing time.

Natalie
Remember her ashen skin? She's doing time in heaven for smoking pot.

Deniese
The outcast. Yah, she committed suicide. What did you ever see in her?

Yah,
I never really thought you were a special guy.





Candy,
You made my life hell
You drove them all away
Now I'm stuck at home typing a God-effing letter to you
To say goodbye
'Cause you love me too much to let me go

Maxim

Resignation
E
LoSers
Is
G
N
A
T
I
FOR
N

Breaking Addictions is Like Puling Teeth

I give up.
I've given up. addiction
I've given up.

HOLY MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST!

I did it.

I've given up!

Nothing important, of course.

Breaking Addictions is Like Puling Teeth

I give up.
I've given up. addiction
I've given up.

HOLY MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST!

I did it.

I've given up!

Nothing important, of course.

Righteousness

Resignation
So often the better, wiser option
All our resistance, crumbling beneath

WAIT!!!!!

Their reason?



What in the name of Jesus fucking Christ said they could-
God.
God, of course, you little twit.

Your God. Their God.

All the same, it is the right God.

Right for you, but not for me, though.

Too late.

It is NEVER too late.

Really, now, but isn't it always?

Nothing Important, Honest!

Man in wheelchair Guiding them
Is he really a person?
That one, no that one,
His arid, blubbering mouth
Lips shuffling across his face
He must be daft, she says, and flounces off down Poverty Lane,
With a capital "b" for "bitch" sand-blown into her eyes

She saw his skin, his lying flesh
Just long enough to cut a smooth incision
His already damaged soul broken again

She did not see his youth
Lost it to the nuclear mushroom cloud of warfare, that's what 'e did
Didn't see it coming now, didja, missy?
Didn't see it screaming at your lost soul
Least he has 'is- what have you gone and done with yours?

His mouth she saw, but never read
Dancing and swimming his face around to hide
Burning saltwater she has turned her back to,
But it's better his way
She doesn't have a soul; why should she deserve to cry?

Progress

Ghosts of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island
Slowly snatching the fame
From their material hosts
Tossing it into the recycling bin
In heaven labeled "For Witless Jerks"

Shadows of scrawny, one-armed trees
Stand sentinel
Propped up by plastic sheaths and asphalt soil
Merely for show, of course-
Concrete is more lively these days

Then again, progress was never wrong.