I like words. I use them, and I hope that mostly I use them well. Intentionally. Meaning I use the words I intend to use. I have a good number at my disposal, and have been known to be liberal with them. Verbally, and in writing. So poetry comes at no surprise, right?
What better way to get back into the blogging effort that with a poem? This one owes inspiration to one of my co-workers and friends. He is a poet. It's what he does, and who he is. It is his passion. So when he told us a story of a family camping disaster, I expected him to follow up with, "...and here's the poem I wrote about it." He was too busy to go there, but the incident turned and turned in my brain. I thought it NEEDED to be a poem. The story started suggesting imagery and phrases which I eventually wrote down, then arranged and rearranged and edited and I may continue to do so, who knows...
At any rate, here is the poem as it stands now...
Camp Warfare
what a poet knows of warfare
isn’t limited to the struggle
of bringing wife and child
camping.
so many things start
with nature
inspirations while
looking up at the Milky Way
after dinner over a campfire
millions of stars, across the sky
that plummet to earth as lead
with only flimsy tent walls to break their fall
dark stillness broken by
the wilds of exuberance and ammunition
not wolf calls or hoot owls in your
nylon ripstop fantasies
betrayed, she makes the
hunched run to the car
protecting your baby with her body
stars fall like fear
there is a wild dash of packing
no neat folding
no checking to see if those socks are dry
punch it into the trunk and sort it out later
his truck accelerates, then spins
throwing dirt and bullets
and profanity at the sky
are there screams?
Oh, God, Oh God,
Oh, God dammit!
bullets care no more than stars
who is below themby Dina Honeycutt, please do not reprint without permission.
