November 2016
A former copywriter who found her true calling writing deathless advertising jingles for AM radio, I am also the former Poet Laureate of Wisconsin (2009 - 2010), and the author of six poetry collections. The most recent of these, titled Step on a Crack, is just out from White Violet Press (Kelsay Books.). My work has appeared in many anthologies and journals, including Poetry, Able Muse, and Measure, and I also served for five years as a regular poetry columnist for The Writer magazine. I currently live in Madison, Wisconsin with my poet-husband Dave and an aging cat, where I continue to write, teach, and hobnob with some extraordinary poets who also call Wisconsin home.
Private Memo from the U.S. Chiefs of Staff
Hey, will we lose this war? No way in hell.
From time to time the generals look perplexed,
but damn, our strategies are working well!
Remember how we sliced that parallel
across Korea? How we cleared the decks
when other strategies weren’t working well?
And all those sixties hippies—couldn’t they tell
we’d never dump Saigon until we flexed
some muscle? Lose that war? No way in hell.
The Gulf Wars? Goddamn shame we didn’t sell
the world on simply letting us annex
the Middle East. It might have worked real well.
And now, Terrorism. Can’t we quell
that slippery abstraction with our next
gambit? And if there ain’t no way in hell,
Let’s just kick ass. Keep the clientele
from getting surly. Irritated. Vexed.
Old strategies might not hold up so well,
but lose? You nuts? No way in hell.
©2016 Marilyn L. Taylor
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF