Moonbeam II
a repost of a poem, written in high school by yours truly.
There’s a strange property
Of military gear
Once it stands for long enough
And is honorably discharged
From its service
It gains SOVL
No, not soul,
SOVL
(pronounced soul, emphasis on the entire word)
The absence of SOVL is
sovlless, defined as lacking soul
Few words can describe it, but I shall attempt
At doing so
The number one rule of SOVL
Is obsolescence
It must be obsolete or less relevant in
The modern day
To have SOVL
There must be a replacement
Better in almost every measure
Things like the M-16 rifle
Especially the A1 and A2 variants
Both relics of Vietnam and the late cold war
Respectively
Supplanted in its entirety by newer
More compact weapons systems
Or the MX-991/U Flashlight
Developed in the late 60s
And fielded in Vietnam
With its heavy plastic construction
Taking two D-Cell batteries
It’s no brighter than a small stack of birthday candles
Most assuredly,
This light has plenty of SOVL
With LED technology
And Lithium batteries
Allowing the power of the sun
In the palm of your hand
The moonbeam is ostensibly obsolescent
But it is most certainly not
Obsolete
With the same technology
Some underpaid and overworked engineer
Figured out that an LED could run off
The massive, bloated D-Cell batteries
And the sales team decide to push this replacement
To everyone except the military
And I went ahead
And bought one
And as my moonbeam
Died in my hands
The SOVL left it’s body
As the warm incandescent bulb
Blinked out for the last time
Of course, the moonbeam has a spare bulb compartment
Owing to the lackluster lifespan of incandescent bulbs
I shoved an LED bulb there
And waited for the slow
Death
Of my moonbeam
Resurrected
Like an animated corpse
sovlless in every conceivable manner
Nothing changed about it, except the bulb
No longer was the moonbeam my warm companion
It was cold, harsh
No different from the awful LED
Flashlight my scouts all used
And as I shat in the cold latrine
I flicked on the light switch
Only to find the creamy color was gone
Replaced with a soulless daylight white
The white filter dimmed it so it
Was no brighter than a cellphone flashlight
And now
All hope is lost
Maybe i’ll find some replacement bulbs
That have the same SOVL as the incandescent ones
I could go back to incandescents but it’s honestly too much
Of a hassle to bother with
I wiped my ass
And shed a tear
For my beloved, moonbeam.