Can it be that I haven’t posted to my blog since March? To ease back into it, let me post a poem I wrote after our so-called Independence Day. Seems I’ve written many poems following the Fourth of July holiday. It inspires me.

(July 5)

“Spins on ground, emits flames and sparks”
I picked up the small red cannister,
read and dropped it, an unthinking part of me
started to think the dud could explode.

Signs of last night’s celebration litter the asphalt
black-on-black shadows amid carboard and plastic
carnage. “No smoking” signs plastered on the abandoned
fireworks shed; two for one on selected items.

News broadcast says the Pentagon’s revised its strategy
no longer able to “fight two wars simultaneously
anywhere in the world.” Now it’s one war and protect
the homeland. Booms, crackles and the barking of terrified

dogs kept me awake. Remember the 70-day bombing of
what was once Yugoslavia? The elderly sisters wrote:
“noise more than the blood is driving us insane.” In Iraq
a boy picks up the litter of war, a girl in Afganistan

spins on the ground, emitting flames and sparks.

© 2005 Jennie Orvino