War Hounds

                                                     

                        The empty plasma of overridden bromides
                        colors the milestone in black;
                        fording pass the crumbled maze
                        and compendious restrained impulse
                        comes brutish resentment,
                        where conspiring rivals compete
                        in camisade and strappado;
                        vernal battery from adolescent minds
                        for whom forego canon for entropy--
                        encroached, broken, and tattered hearts
                        the swells of youth,
                        malapert and malaised egoism 
                        contest for love, where 
                        invidious blows soon conquer 
                        the weaker foe, looking back
                        savagery always wins over acumen. 


                       -   John Hardesty