The Very Unmusical Instrument Poem by John Bliven Morin

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning Automatic Rifle

What was he doing, the demigod Man,
With his air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed rifle;
Spreading ruin and scattering bran,
Splashing with his M-nineteen-eighteen A-two;
As breaking the golden lillies it flew,
Its weight, eight point thirty-three kilograms.

He tore out the reeds, the demigod Man,
With caliber thirty (thirty ought six)
And those behind them were sans elàn,
Falling and floating among and in it,
By five hundred fifty rounds per minute
For five hundred fifty meters, it can.

Copyright (C) 2004, John Bliven Morin