Well, its been a while since I last posted. Today's poem is a military theme. It is in answer to a challenge/suggestion for a poem by Rick W., my best friend. I have worked with soldiers who do recruiting duty and I am struck by how torn they are between doing the best job they can do and knowing what it is they are recruiting for. This poem seeks to understand this push pull situation. I respect recruiters for what they must do, often being pulled into recruiting duty when it is the last thing they want to do. Again, this poem does not describe any one recruiter nor is it intended to depict a verbatim experience, but is a synthesis of those I have encountered. By the way, SAW stands for Squad Automatic Weapon (it is a light machine gun).


Quota

With a wall to wall chest of medals,
A handshake for the parent,
Free pens and caps all around,
Funding for college (obscures the truth)
At the corner’s of the Recruiter’s hard lips as
the SAW bucks and smokes in his hands
(he remembers it all)
the worried look on the mother’s face
she signs the parental release for her 17yr old
“Man, you are gonna look good in uniform
Playing football is gonna help you a lot!
You are honoring your mother today
Raise your right hand, state your name and”
You can’t hear IEDs screaming towards you.
Angry metal and flame floating out with
No escape/no Haji to fight as diesel blackened
Headaches spiderweb your thoughts like the
Bloodied windshield from the RPG
He pulls the limp, legless SGT from the fire
“You goin’ infantry?
Huge bonus if you re-enlist
Hell, I’ll swear you back in, myself.
No matter what, you will always be a soldier
You can always be proud of that”.
Then the woman and her starry-eyed son
Step out into the strip mall’s snowy parking lot.
He meant every word he said to the high school football star.
But couldn’t tell him (or anyone else) how
He fought to go back down range
Would go in place of any recruit he enlisted.
He needs to go back so he can (somehow...magically) stop
A convoy being hit and keep
His last recruit from slumping over the wheel and
Going away with the sun into endless night.
Glancing from his recruiting awards
To the piles of paperwork on his desk
He hesitates,
Haunted from meeting
His quota.

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Let me know your thoughts. Take care.

b

Challenge Poem

Hello everyone!
Last poem of 2010. This is a challenge post response to my nephew. He wanted to see if I could do a poem about football. Well...here it is. I write about what I know. I was an offensive lineman in High School, and played two years of semi-pro football as an offensive lineman, and coached one year of semi-pro as the Offensive Line Coach. If you want the full effect of the poem, I highly encourage you to read it out loud with an old fashioned Blues beat in your head. It is more fun that way.

Talk to ya next year.

Lineman Blues

Just as I lean forward,
The fans scream from their pews.
The ref throws a flag at me,
I got those Lineman blues!

Refrain:
Lineman Blues...Oh...the Lineman Blues.
The Drive, it just keeps on foldin’.
‘Cause I can’t stop holdin’
On to dem ol’ Lineman Blues.

My body’s like iron.
Make a linebacker moan.
Just don’t throw a pass to me,
Because my hands are made of stone.

Refrain:
Lineman Blues...Oh...got the Lineman Blues.
The fans don’t really know me.
No autographs to slow me,
From dem ol’ Lineman Blues.

Can’t catch no endorsements,
Can’t seem to light a fuse.
Nobody wants to see a lineman
Wearing blue jeans or drinking booze.

Refrain:
Lineman Blues...Oh...the Lineman Blues.
If we win, they never name me,
Any sack, y’know they blame me,
With dem ol’ Lineman Blues.

___________________________________

Have a great new year, and cheer
for a lineman once in a while!

b

Christmas Poem

I've been out of the loop for a month now. But things are slowing down and I have time to write (and answer some challenge poem ideas). Today's poem is new, and I wrote it with the past and the present in mind. Christmas time, like so many things in my life, have changed since childhood. There was a time when I was quite the "bah humbug" type of guy. Guess I am going in a circle in terms of how I see this time of year. I'm still not the type to decorate or shop for gifts, but I see Christmas as meaning something again.


Never Sure About Christmas

I’m never sure about Christmas.
When hope loops like ropes of tinsel on a tree.
Brought out for display with the music of the times,
Then packed away
In boxes,
Forgotten until winter reminds us again
To decorate our lives for each other.

Your hope is beautiful.
Wear it year around.

I’m never sure why we shop
For our presents
While our pasts
Lie unwrapped and put to the side.
We run down the stairs,
Children once more,
Ripping the wrappings of our future.
Watching what others become.

I'll help you assemble your happiness,
You can steady my bike as I steer into life.

I’m never sure if I’ll like what I get.
Christmas is the stuff of uncertainty.
The mystery of cookies and milk eaten as I sleep,
Finding gifts I must figure out on my own.

I’m never sure about Christmas
Until I hold it close.
______________________________

Let me know your thoughts.
Have a safe and happy holiday.

Orn

My first challenge poem!

Hey everyone. This week I offer two poems. The first one is a Veterans' Day Poem I wrote many years ago. The second one is in response to the first challenge poem of this blog! Way to go Dawn. I have a second challenge already and I WANT MORE!! It makes me create something each week, and I love it. Make me earn your support on this blog. Okay...enough already.

This first poem I wrote back when I was at the University of Iowa (thousand years ago). I remember the inspiration was seeing the dark, grey sky reflected in a puddle on a cold Veteran's day. I was out walking. The breeze was making the water ripple. It was like the whole of the world had just cried itself out.

Fades in My Tears

Mute.
Grief-spent the sky stared
At its wind quivering reflection.
Threatened renewed anguish.
Autumn yellow fades in its tears.
I could not console it.

Wisdom.
Plentiful as the wreathes on cold granite
Decorates my mind
Dies in my throat.

Duty Honor Country Sacrifice
Confuses me.

The cost
Humbles me.

Blood-rusted oaks try to hold back
The sky’s tears.
I share it’s burst of pain
But cannot console it.

The effort dies in my throat.
Fades in my tears.
____________________________

This poem is in answer to Dawn Reed Vinkavich's challenge . She recalled the days of our high school days. In those days, we would muster our courage and alcohol, and visit the Black Angel of Oakwood Cemetary, Iowa City, IA. For those not schooled in local Iowan lore, the Black Angel was a statue/grave stone that was cursed, and frequently visited by the curious (and sometimes the brash). In all the visits I paid the Angel, I never once thought about the dead the Angel was meant to remember. Dawn, this poem is not a funny recollection of our teen days, but an acknowledgement of what so many of us missed. Rodina Feldevertova is Czech for "the Family of Feldevert. It is the name chiseled on the base of the angel.

Rodina Feldevertova

In your darkest nights
Amid the laughter of drunken
Mischief looking for bragging rights,
You hold out for dignity.

The mystery of your silent, menacing repose is
Broken by macabre photos
Touches from the curious
Whispers of what is wrong
About you

You did not ask for
The insensitive trampling
Of your solitude.

So many visit you
Yet forget your purpose.

You weep for Rodina Feldevertova.
They lie (unnoticed)
Beneath your open wings
(and) away
From our darkest hearts.

____________________________

May you all laugh and love beneath the wings of your guardian angels.
Until next time.

b

From the memory of a friend

A school friend of mine, Brett Duncan, commented on a poem and recalled memories of he and I catching bees when we were little kids. It got me thinking. Although I usually try to show two poems per post, I wanted to get this out. I wrote it last night.

Bees

Funny how bees (like our memories)
Find their way home.

Can bring back the stuff of love and flowers
(Honey gold thick on the bread of our lives).
Can sting us to tears
(from sacrifice and loss).

If trapped in a jar
They bang headlong against glass walls of reality
(They die)
No matter how many holes we poke
In the lids of our relationships.

If set free
We risk losing them
In the fading blossoms of autumn
(amid choices that were once ours)

Funny how bees (like our hopes)
Will dance to show where the pollen hides.
Will buzz from the beauty of a dew-jeweled meadow.
And give the cool of a petal’s shade
To a friend.
__________________________________

Let me know your thoughts.
b.

Back When I was in Korea

This week, I thought I would share some poems I wrote when I was in the Army and doing some training in South Korea. They say that soldiers are happiest when they are complaining...so I must have been euphoric. The first two poems are about Army training in the field. I wrote them to amuse myself and my fellow soldiers. As much as I like to write free verse poetry, I love to write rhyming poetry (it just makes me laugh, I guess!). The 3rd poem is a poem I wrote in response to a challenge. A sergeant bet me I couldn't write a Halloween poem in less than an hour in the middle of the Spring. It was late at night, in a tent and it was freezing out. Its different...Happy Halloween.

This first poem (and the second poem) have some military jargon and acronyms that I will explain now, otherwise, it may not make much sense (there will be a quiz afterwards):

FTX: Field Training Exercise
O.D. (Olive Drab...the color of our uniforms)
PFC: Private First Class
LT: Lieutenant

FTX Contemplation I
(Korea)

The tent is green, the lights are white,
The ground is reddened clay.
My chair is hard, my butt is sore,
From soldiering all day.
The cots are up, the rain falls down.
Our night is cloaked in black.
The dawn has yet to make its day,
We dream of going back.
The tents - they rise.
The tents - they fall.
The tents - we fold.
The tents - we haul.
Inside the tents the world is O.D.,
Inside our clothes, we smell so grodie.
Sergeants, Captains, PFC.
Mud and web belts, and one LT.
Its just a job, its just a thrill,
To ward off boredom, and fight off chill.
You think of booze, but not of sex.
Nights are too long on an FTX.
You carry on bravely, and don your mask.
Ponder the questions you never dare ask.
And the rain just keeps falling,
As it did in the past.
_____________________________
In Korea, human feces is often used as crop fertilizer. It was common for a military unit to get permission from a Korean Farmer to use his field to set up tents in, but only if all the soldiers would defecate in the field before leaving (I am dead serious.) More definitions...sorry.

cammo: Camouflage netting used to hide tents and scramble electronics
TOC: Tactical Operations Center (where I worked when in the field)
OB bars: Korean Taverns that served cheap Korean beer
MRE (Meals Ready to Eat served in plastic pouches)
Mr. T's: Massive trays of ready to heat meals, perhaps the worst tasting food ever made.
Combat Trains (Support units that have food, clothes, equipment, etc.)
XO: Executive Officer (2nd in Command of the Battalion)
ENDEX: The End of the Exercise (some of the best words in the English Language)

FTX Contemplation II
(Korea)

The cammo net goes way up high,
To hide the TOC from passers-by.
We pack the tents and jump in trucks
Like human duffle bags and rucks.
We do this several times a day
To justify our army pay.
We shiver far beneath the stars
And fantasize of "O.B." bars.
We have no choice of what to wear
So mix and match without a care.
And when we turn to run or fight,
We break down TOC in dark of night.
We don’t move out ‘til light of day,
There has to be an better way.

Manure is our main TOC floor,
Manure makes my bed.
Manure permeates my clothes,
And clings around my head.

M-R-E’s, “Mr.-T’s”, a moon-pie and a coke,
We’re on a constant sugar buzz
So full of shit we choke.
Korean snows and radios make me want to laugh,
I pity those in the combat trains
With the XO of our staff.
“Safety” is the motto cheer,
Goat-fuck is the rule.
The locals folks ignore us here
As one ignores a fool.
ENDEX never comes too soon,
The trucks to leave too fast.
I’ve memories enough to share,
And dirt enough to last.
I worry about our training, though.
Were all the standards met?
Or are we hiding all our faults
Beneath our cammo net?
__________________________

This last poem still creeps me out a little. (What was I thinking?!?)

Rites

Bloodied, the moon approved the sacrifice.
Blessed the Blackest Sabbath.
A single tree, stained dark by countless lives,
Held innocence fast.

“Circle gather to call his name.
Washed in blood to feed the flame.”

Clammycold death touches her to the soul.
Grips her life.
Devours her screams as delicious.

“Circle join to be as one
Praise his name, his will be done.”

Hooded forms of soulless night.
Timeless dead
Performing rites of madness.
Rituals of horror.
Dripping.
Drooling.
Tasting.
At last, she sees no more.
The tree has its shroud.

“Circle flows his power gives.
Draws life from death, and deathless, lives.”

Without comment, the moon stalked away into the clouds.
The night, filled with guilty silence,
Awaited the dawn’s purging.

And the rites of Halloween live on.
________________________________

Let me know your thoughts. 'Til next time, take care of yourselves.

b

Hodge Podge

Today I thought I would share some poems that are...well, different. The first is an angry poem. The second, a poem that I hope displays some humor. I actually delight in writing funny stuff, but they are usually about and for friends, and the jokes are usually known only to a few, so I will explain a few points. If you like the humorous one, I will share more. Let me know.

During my stint as a therapist, I worked with children. Often, they had some pretty horrific backgrounds. Almost always, an adult knew about the abuse and didn't tell anyone because they didn't want to be involved. The metaphor of the poem came when I was visiting inlaws many years back. Racoons were rampant in the area, and the process was to trap the racoon and then shoot it in the cage. Then someone else would hose the blood from the driveway.

Never Touched a Soul

i flinch every time it happens.
close my eyes and ears
so my ignorance remains just so.
hose blood off the driveway
(its good for the grass, i hear).
i mean, i didn’t put it there,
the blood, that is.
made sure i wasn’t too close to the action.
looked away just in time.
habit i guess. (and a good one, i might add).
if i may be so bold:
take my advice
stay out of the dark places,
children die there, (in the dark places, i mean).
rotting in corners of closets
backrooms in basements.
i’ve seen it.
helped provide the apathy.
but never touched a soul.
never ever.
absolutely disgraceful nowadays.
how innocence is slaughtered.
so many monsters with time on their hands.
i’ve seen ‘em.
the houses they live in (the children and the monsters).
not to worry, just follow my lead:
tend to your lawn.
if i had a forte (love that word, forte).
it would be the cleansing of my conscience.
its as cleanas a whistle.
(i’m told blood is good for the grass).

________________________________________

This next poem I wrote for a fellow intern when I was getting my doctorate in psychology. She came up from Texas for the year long internship. She could only afford an apartment in the worst part of town. Her deadbeat spouse did not pay the monthly car bill, so her car was temporarily repossessed, her dog was...well read for yourself. The episode with the crow is true. I love Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven", so here is my tribute to her perseverance and Poe's poetry.
My Ravin’
(with apologies to Edgar Allen Poe and his poem, The Raven)

As I wondered in the ghettos, stepping over used stilettos, feeling knowledge rich, and yet so intern poor.
While I plodded, slowly walking, suddenly gunfire came a-pocking, with gangstas softly mocking, mocking at the year I had in store.
“‘Tis only gang-banging”, I muttered, “mocking me so poor.
Only this and nothing more.”

With fears I do remember, the Fall into December, double locking all my windows, and triple checked the door.
As I staggered, without hoping, my sanity a-groping, with drooling dopers doping, I gave a Texan’s roar.
“My car has been stolen”, I shouted, and help I did implore.
It was repossessed, and nothing more.

With my brave retriever, a tried and true believer, hiding in by bathtub, and frightened to
The core.
He was spinning, in a tizzy, I think he got too dizzy, I did not see it, (way too busy), he fell onto
The floor.
He bumped his head, I ranted, and called for help and more.
You need help, they said, and nothing more.

With my dog more was to follow, his head still being hollow, bullied by tiny foxes that left him running for the door.
I was cleaning, inward crying, I tell the truth (I am not lying), he caught a raven that was flying, interrupting my ghetto chore.
“Drop the bird”, I screamed, chasing my dog across the floor.
My focus became that crow, and nothing more.

With raucous cries in my apartment, in my closet’s dark compartment, the raven flew as if to seek some safety’s shore.
On my head, it tried to ramp on, it’s little head I’d gladly stamp on, the fuckin’ bird had stole a tampon, and flew out my bathroom door.
“Stupid bird!” I raved, “to be so hygiene poor.”
I drank a Blue Moon sixpack, and nothing more.

As an intern I’ve paid dearly, hear me shriek in anger clearly, it is your understanding,
that I do implore.
Colorado’s cold has made me shiver, I drank so much I shot my liver, I think of jumping in the river, the warmth of Texas I do succor.
“Heading South”, I chanted, as I never had before.
And you shall hear my ravin’, nevermore.

_________________________________________________-

Let me know your thoughts and reactions. Til next time, take care of yourself and each other.

b