September 2022
Joe Miano
jmiano@cox.net
jmiano@cox.net
Bio Note: I am a retired physics teacher who has written poems ever since High School. I have taught in Kenya with the Peace Corps, South Bend, Indiana, and Oklahoma City. Recently I have published an historical fiction novel, A Thief in the African Night: The Conflict of Change available on Amazon. It includes a few of my poems.
The Reaping Scythe
The scythe swings
It swoops, it slashes
At the sorghum
It whips and whistles
Through the wheat
The combine collects
Reaps, thrashes,
and winnows.
Scythe men
Swoop down
On school children.
Invading scythes
Whip women
Invading their privacy
And swoop down
On civilians
Leaving cold corpses
While tanks,
Like combines,
Gather innocents
Into prisons.
Missiles whistle,
With shrapnel
Sharp as scythes,
Dropping on cities,
Winnowing
And bringing
Whistling worry
On young and old
Scattering them
Winnowed
By the winds of war.
©2022 Joe Miano
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