i don’t know who i am anymore, i was once secure in my identity, government issue (g.i.) joe, a man who fights for his country, but i’ve learned too much, am i really just an action figure? with the army? navy? air force? marines? all of them at once? it’s not possible for one man/toy? to endure so much training, so much violence, and the (g.i.) is a lie, hasbro is my creator, not the government or god, so confusing, real american hero, what bunk, in comic books and on tv, all of that is me making money? inspiration for young boys to grow up and kill? please help, i’m so distraught, born in 1964, then vietnam, iraq, afghanistan, how many men now have ptsd because of me?
Tag: Violence
I Am A Beer
hold me in a bottle
wrap your fingers around
my label, place me
carefully on a pool table
i help with conversation
will make you a man
give you something to do
wanna grab one of me
after work? sure thing
i invented liquid courage
beer muscles, and who
said you can’t win
with me you will punch
all night, or say hello to
him or her, or that person
sitting over there, don’t
stare too long, drink me
like you mean it
with time, you will
love me, but i’ll
never love you back
Neruda and War Addiction
somewhere in neruda’s memoir he speaks about addiction, war addiction and che guevara, ecstatic life on a constant journey toward death, craved knowing he might die, was going to die, unity with the greatest unknown, heaven maybe, or not, but on the way, violence, machine gun eruption, mortar explosions, deafening everything, all thought becoming sound, becoming silence, perhaps the final silence, and now, instead of fear, there is oneness, war, when we are really in it, makes us whole
Avoidance
no, not the
details, foreheads trickling
blood of children
and i’ve seen
this before in
israel and gaza
the photos and
headlines, hopeless
but then i
turn off my
phone and it
all just disappears
and i think
about the basketball
playoff game instead
Girl Reads Civil War Poem
This poem is called Maggots,
Samantha stands in front of the
classroom with a sly smile. Her
piece inspired by historic conflict,
skips Gettysburg, Antietam, and
all the words of war. No rebel yell,
or regiments, she leaves nurse
descriptions and widow tears for
other poems to divulge. Starts
at the end, she speaks her black
beginning, maggots chewing,
spewing flesh of men without faces,
corpses all in their places for the feast.
She maintains throughout, that nature
intended such death, that it was all
meant to be. Not for North or South,
but for the legless larva to probe
darkness, with their bloody glee.
Daniel W. Polk 