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| (for the veterans) |
War
Is foreign to me.
Not something I want to do –
Or hear or smell or see.
And
I think that's true
For most young-hearted women
And men inside it, too:
They
Walk into the cloud,
Silent as church mass heads
All conformedly bowed
There
To give a little
Speck to the air; a bead
To fell something brittle,
Some
Distant devil who
Makes friends fall & has to be
Stopped (that much is true).
To my uncle, and a lot of others who never really came away from the crow's nest. I'm sorry that the rules say sometimes you should kill a stranger if their flag's your designated target. I know you were never so hateful, as a person, and I love you. Happy Veteran's Day.
ReplyDelete*Thanks to Jonathan (the crow's nest), Jomeline (front porch flag), Robert Capa (church door rubble & surgery unit), and Krista(“stop the ware before it stops you”) for making this collage full.
This poem definitely surprised me. I read the title and expected to read about a romantic relationship and the complications with long distance but I was pleasantly surprised by the direction you took. War is a multi-faceted and incredibly complex topic to tackle in a short poem, but I think you got your thoughts and message across extremely well. I can relate completely to the feeling of reverence that we all have for our veterans, while still being confused and removed from the situation itself. As you state beautifully in the first few lines, war is often something that we try to ignore and remove ourselves from. Although I may not have been expecting it, after reading the poem I think the title fits the message of the poem very well. By defying the expectations the reader has after seeing the title adds depth to the analysis of war. One thing that I really enjoy about your poems is your interesting spacing and physical structure. However, I have been trying and I cannot really understand the significance of the appearance of this poem. Why is the poem in slanted form? Is there any special significance?
ReplyDeleteIt's stable, but it's not straight.
DeleteIt seems like progression, but it falls backwards.
I wouldn't say I have "reverence" for our veterans (a feeling or attitude of profound respect, usually reserved for the sacred or divine; devoted veneration), so much as empathy and compassion: it hurts me to think about them. To think about the ugliness that they have to rush headlong into to be considered a "veteran."
... makes me think of "_____hospital," "_____ memorial," "_____ widow's benefits." Not nearly so venerable as it is pitiable.
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