Transporting Pirates of Penzance for Battle of the Bulge

My own clockwork reset when I arrived;
seems that I'm shaped as man-sized teddy bear.
I had expected 1945,
But arrivals read 1954.

Not Paris' Gare du Nord but London's Paddington
with a ticket in my pocket for Penzance.
Was met by contact Sir Frank Henry Brown.
It is a cover to fit in with pirates; quite a dance

transporting crew and major general
back to the front by small derigible time machine.
Their craft awaits them on the River Rhine.
I left with Brown a robot replica
to act as a children's torch in case I'm seen;
Who'd guess such fun would come from that design.

(c) Gay Reiser Cannon * 10/30/2012 * All Rights Reservd

This is my "attempt" at a steampunk poem. Not exactly Victorian; but growing out of the Torchwood, Dr.Who steampunk vocabulary. Also from the gratification I now have that since my first trip to Paddington station, when finding NO Paddington bears there.  

July 4, 2012 * US *

Common Domain

I declare
"This land is my land"
You declare
This land is yours.
From sea to trash filled sea!
Is it our land? Was it ever? Will it ever be.
Is it a land calling out to everyone
A "home of the brave and the free"--
Is it a place rid of prejudice, a home for free thought.
From its declarations to its set of rules, what have we wrought.

For it we've shed the blood of boys, innocents who believed
And more who never knew anything of creed.
Clustered now, today celebrating "freedom"
From England, and now we're a land of
Anglophiles building on her language by choice
Her Magna Carta, her inherent sense that
The people (all the people) should have a voice
In government, that common good should rule;
That to invest too much in One is to play the fool.

How can this ideal exist with capitalist greed.
How can we trust the power mad to provide what we need.
How can we know our neighbors can be kind and good
When "media" and journalists hawk that all of that brings ruin.

Can we mend from all these wars, from the differences that divide;
Can we rejoice in the eccentricities of people that will override.
Can we celebrate that inherently we choose to be the middle
That giving up first place, living just and tolerant solves the riddle.

Another year - counting eleven score and sixteen
We've fought to hold it all together
A young country yet and it could still be so much better
Shouldn't we make a vow in this election year
To use our votes and voices and make the message clear
That out of many comes a one that means good for all
That holding hands, caring, not hating, might prevent the fall.

© Gay Reiser Cannon * July 3, 2012 * All Rights Reserved
Posted for OpenLinkNight hosted 7.3/7.4 2012 @dVersePoets Pub
Hosted by Claudia Shoenfeld