98. World War I

An archduke was shot.

The new shot heard around the world.

Weapons were built.

A new war sparked.

Alliances formed.

Germany, Austria, Italy

Russia, France, Britain,

They stood against each other.

Pushed each other.

Never gaining ground.

Monsters rumbled over land

Bringing destruction to lives and property.

The Wright Brothers’ innocent invention turned to war as well.

People lived, fought and died in the trenches.

Both sides bravely faced their bloody stalemate.

Europe became a black hole of war.

Americans preached isolationism

But war came to them anyway.

Lusitania opened the door to America.

A solution finally came.

Mr. Wilson’s pipe dream,

The bubble from his head

Of a perfect world

Happy and peaceful

here nations could bring their problems to a league.

The Treaty of Versailles

Turned the league into reality.

Peace reigned supreme.

The war seemed to be over

For now.

40. The Trojan War

A bloody battle soon ensued

On the plain of Illium.

The Akhaians came one thousand fold.

To take the city and her gold.

Curses and plagues flowed through the Greek camp

As gods played with mice and men.

The weakness of their great champion

Wasn’t only his heel.

Bloody stalemate caused red waterfalls

The fell to Hades’ land.

Pyres burned day and night

Because of the week foot’s stubborn ways.

Achilles, the man with fragile heel

Pouted in his tent

Because his precious trophy was taken away.

He stayed there

Like the man of marble that he was.

Even with his brothers’ cries

He just wouldn’t break.

But then the cracks began to show

When his Petroklos

Was carried to Hades’ hated den.

“Alas, Poor Petroklos!”

They cried in torment.

“Hero to us all.”

“While ours was pouting in his tent”

“Only he answered his brother’s call.”

So Achilles went

To challenge the horse trainer Hector.

“No prayers from you to me.”

He said as he desecrated his body.

Achilles dragged Hector across Illium’s great plain

Never once to let up

Priam’s pleading went unheard

So the gods had to intervene.

Achilles relented.

They had their funeral pyre.

It was an arrow from the Trojan prince’s hand

That helped him follow Hector down to that god-forsaken land.

A crafty island king and his wooden horse

Brought the city’s final end.