Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Unfinished Letters
A pencil whispers secrets to the page.
A pen scrawls out in bitterness and rage;
while typewriters plink, and clink,
and hammer at their ribbon’s ink,
catapulting words at paper walls,
sending soldiers running down the halls
with orders stuffed in envelopes
dashing everybody’s hopes
that they may all be home before the fall.
A Private writes his fiancée a poem.
His Sergeant scribes an angry letter home.
Then rockets shake, and bullets rake,
and walls collapse, and windows break,
and blood runs o’er the words of each man’s page;
o'er the truth about the waste of war they wage.
But it’s in plinks, and clinks as cold as ice
that we’ll read of their sacrifice,
then fold our paper, sip our coffee, disengage.
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11 comments:
Hai,,nice blog
WOW, Randy, another incredibly beautiful, meaningful, thought provoking, and well written piece! You are indeed a talented writer. I look forward to more and more from you. AAA
Thanks Jeany and AAA. I’m never sure if my serious moods translate well. Tones and images are slippery things to put into words, so I appreciate the feedback. I would welcome critical comments also. You don’t always have to be so polite. “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” doesn’t apply here.
Randy, Fred read your poem...his exact comment: "Isn't that the truth!"
AAA:
As I do with many of the poems I write after a few days, I changed the title, and tweaked a line or two. Better or worse? Hard to say. Tell Fred Thanks for reading. Glad to hear it rings true to someone.
both versions excellent!
AAA
unlike my generation's debacle in vietnam, these wars today are not played out in our living rooms, as we seem much more interested in lohan's latest indescretion than to be bothered by the nuisance of distant casualties. also true, there is no draft to spread around the skin in the game, leaving an obscene number of us whistling a happy tune all the live long day in willful cluelessness.
it's blindfully shameful is what it is, if it's anything.
what a poignant way to rip the blindfold off randy. great job as always! i recommend you submit your piece to the new yorker magazine.
Okay, here's version #3, and I think I'm done changing it. Still struggling with the first two lines of the second stanza, but I give up (unless something new pops into my head.) What sounds best doesn’t say what I want to say, and what says what I want doesn’t sound right, so I present to you this compromise.
Thank you AAA for being so complimentary of my ever changing poem about America’s indifference to its soldiers. No need to separately compliment version #3, but feel free to chime in if I made it worse. Sometimes my poor writing is only eclipsed by my poor editing.
Shameful is right Bob, and thank you for your kind comments. I was too young to be drafted, but old enough to watch the nightly news during the Vietnam War and I remember the scenes well. I wore the POW/MIA bracelet of Major Frederick W. Hess Jr. during the final years of the war, and I’ve gone to The Wall to find his name among the tens of thousands inscribed there. I will never understand how our country can just look the other way as our son’s and daughter’s are pushed forward like pawns on a chessboard to be sacrificed for those who stand safely on the back squares. Concerning your recommendation to submit this, I’ve been rejected by some pretty good publications, so why not add the New Yorker to my list. If I hear back, I’ll be sure to let you know what they think of my little poem. Praise from you will be enough to buffer the blow!
Hey Randy, I'm reminded of an old adage of mine: "if rejection is your thing, trying to get published is as rewarding an endeavor as one can undertake."
I think it would be fun to get together some day and compare our reject letters/emails. It'll be like pouring iodine on a three inch gash. What do you say?
In the meantime, you just keep submitting your good work buddy boy and you never mind those unevolved publishing gatekeepers!
Randy, weave your poems together into a book.
They are gems that zap the subconcious. Or maybe your poetry sparks the subconscious. Or your gems of poetry sparkle...or something like that.
Bottom line, take your talent and let it sing. AND that ain't no horse pucky.
Rah-rah-sis-boom-bah!
Boy, all this encouragement is well ...encouraging. Where the hell’s my thesaurus when I need it? …And thank you Pam, for assisting the others in increasing my hat size a tad. I think I will try to build a collection of my peculiar brand of poetry, and even send out a few submissions now and then. Bob, if I can rack up half as many rejections as you have, I will consider myself a success. So far though I’ve received more “ignores” than actual rejections for my attempts at short stories and written humor (Damn those people at Reader's Digest,) and I’ve never bothered to save any of my rejection notices (except for one very nice one from the Smithsonian Magazine, which I thought was pretty prestigious.) I used to think that getting rejection notices was like catching old boots when you’re really trying to catch fish …You throw them back right? ...wrong! Now I see the light. I can just picture myself ten years from now: I’m in my den. ”What’s that racket in there?” “Oh, it’s just me honey …nailing another boot to the wall.”
In my defense though, I really got off on the wrong foot when my first six or seven “Letters to the Editor” all got published, (and now I’m like ten for eleven.) The truth is, getting printed in the local newspaper is as easy as getting your mom to put your crap on the refrigerator, compared to trying to get into a national magazine. Oh well, I'll just have to find my reward in the effort.
PS. These poems I write (except for the silly ones) all do have meaning to me. Some are obvious in their meaning, while others, like The Last Boat, and The Iron Latch, are stories told in metaphors. I’m glad you guys have enjoyed some of them, and most of all, I hope they cause you to pause and think for a moment.
Thank you all for reading! More to come…
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