David A. Bart - poems
  • Intro
  • Home
  • Kingdom Come
  • Tunnel of Love
  • Exit Now
  • The Passion
  • Texas Education
  • Dumb Supper
  • Good Year
  • Toys
  • Saint Michael and the Devil
  • Invisible Knights
  • The Rain Gauge
  • Ponder
  • Remainder
  • Green Ghost
  • December 13th
  • Dedication
  • Prevailing Wind
  • Dreamland 1911
  • 10
  • On the Median
  • These Things Happen
  • White Water
  • The October People
  • Scene from a Moral Panic
  • Estrellita
  • Another Ending
  • What We're Dealing With
  • How Did the Foxes Die?
  • There was a Man
  • Bio. and credits
These Things Happen


July 4th celebrants trampled
their nachos and sangria
to escape the burning spray
of pyrotechnic stars
when a two pound firework
misfired on the ground.
Extinguishers turned the grass
powder-white.


A blue burqa hid the grieving
woman flogging herself
on The News, then she crumpled
at the feet of a shirtless troop
with a shoulder wound
for an epaulet—
an improvised device
exploded in Takrit.


Through night vision
a burned out Hummer
glows fluorescent and local boys
who clambered up to brandish
a soldier's lost kit slink away
like ferrets with silver eyes
and emerald skin.


After some whiny rebukes,
the firework display continued.
Kids atop a Minivan watched,
faces green with glo-sticks,
hands on their ears.
Only their hearing was hurt.

The American Journal of Poetry
​Volume 3, 2017



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