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by Gordon Kippola
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Enlisted folks must now salute you,
or at least your silver bar
with its single black centered square.
Sir,
they’re forced to call you.
You’re glad for more pay
than Staff Sergeants make.
But you’ve learned Sir as a buried sneer
at incompetents, posers
who gobble credit, shifting blame
onto donkeys pulling the plow. Respect
is fantasy dreck: you’ll fail—
but quest—for the grail.
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Following a career as a U.S. Army musician, Gordon Kippola earned an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Tampa, and calls Bremerton, Washington home. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Post Road Magazine, District Lit, The Road Not Taken, The Main Street Rag, Southeast Missouri State University Press, and other splendid publications.
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