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SOLITAIRE Amy Ratcliffe
Where kings behead failures
"I:' As queens laugh and sneer.
Where jokers are wild.
And the ace hides in fear.
The deck shuffles forever
As faces appear.
They praise and applaud,
Then they injure and jeer
Your mind spins in circles
Until you don't care.
The king and queen smile,
Turn their cruel heads to stare.
You weaken and fall.
Cry. 'The game was unfair"
But the jokers just laugh.
You lost
Solitare.
Amy Ratcliffe
THE DAY SAIGON FELL
Too young to understand
Two small hands grasp at air
As the long-forgotten rope shies from their restraint.
Childish fingers lace the twisted cord:
Idle church bells respond to the tug
As victory shatters the stillness.
For ten years this bell tower
Sulked over the dairy farms and cornfields
Waiting for the war to end _
Waiting, as in silent meditation,
To be heard above the noise of machine guns
Pelting death in a moving forest of camouflaged soldiers.
For those men the war can never be over,
But for the child it never started _
He didn't see his mother
Drown in a shower of death,
Or have his legs blown off by a land mine.
As he stumbles through the pages of history
The only pain he feels is for his sick calf - this is real.
Soon he'll be able to drive his father's tractor _ this is life.
Kelly S. Connor
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