Happy Birthday Everette Maddox

Join us tonight in the back patio of the Maple Leaf Bar to read some ‘Rette and celebrate. Until then, courtesy of 13Possums:

LINES ON HIS THIRTIETH BIRTHDAY

On a hill high above
the mild October day
I stand, heroic, hands
clasped behind my back,
as the last musket’s
crack fades
and the smoke drifts away
from the place where the famous
battle of my youth was fought.
Who won? Who lost?
Who knows? My speech,
which I seem to have misplaced,
tells. Oh well:
myself and loves and grey
uniform were not among
the casualties, quite; though
a gold button dangles.
Now we’ll bind the wounds,
free the slaves, and set up
(oh shrewdly!) a national shrine
in the decaying mansion
of my body: post cards,
stuffed possums, and (out back)
whiskey to be sold
such emissaries
from the glacial future
as have coin to spend