“The Kaiser’s Contemplation 100 Years Out” by Jenean McBrearty

Was it possible to end aristocracy

Without the guns of August?

Perhaps the officers who ordered

The lost generation

To match mettle and wits with bayonets

And gas and mortar shells,

Who trudged on trench feet

And served as food for lice,

Never believed it would come to that.

That home and rank would disappear,

Once men left their station.

They believed, and wrongly,

Through glasses darkly,

That things that were would always be.

Certainly, had someone said

You’ll kill God as well,

The officers would have reconsidered

The cruel and unusual war.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jenean McBrearty is a graduate of San Diego State University, a former community college instructor who taught Political Science and Sociology, and is finishing a certificate in Veteran Studies as a Donovan Scholar. Her fiction has been published in a slew of print and online journals including Cigale Literary Magazine, 100 Doors to Madness Anthology, Mad Swirl, and The Moon, and her poetry has been accepted by Van Gogh’s Ear and Page & Spine. Her photographs have appeared in Foliate Oak Literary Journal and Off the Coast Magazine, among others. Her novel, The 9th Circle, was published by Barbarian Books.