Over the weekend, I looked at some of the old writings of mine on another computer. As I changed computers, I would copy a few file folders over to the new one. One of the things I enjoy doing is writing poetry. It is exciting to indulge in and better expresses emotions than long fiction such as novels do. If you write poetry, you do it for yourself. That is because there are very few ways to make a living doing it. The one path to earning a living might be doing it is while teaching at the college level or maybe being a driver for Uber – your hobby is poetry. I am thinking of sharing some poetry and, perhaps, a short story or two on this blog. These have been locked away for a long time. It feels like they have been locked away in a vault of some sort. I will call these things “From the vault.”
This first item from the vault is the oldest poem I have written that I still have. I am not sure when it was written, but it would be after my first wife died. 1967? It was published in 1993 in an anthology titled “A Measured Response.” That title is a term politicians used to describe the Vietnam War. The anthology was edited by H. Palmer Hall and published by Pecan Grove Press. I doubt if it remains in print.
It is a short poem of three stanzas and 16 lines. It’s written from a veteran’s viewpoint if such a thing was possible during the Vietnam War. The “splash” is blood. The “new guy” is dead. The rest, even in poetic form, you should be able to interpret.
Crazier Now
Just watching pretty little fireflies
But we are all a little crazier now.
The jungle’s full of muzzle flashes,
Tiny little killing fire flies,
But they won’t find me. Now.
The new guy beside me, I’m glad
I don’t know his name, is trying
To kill the tiny little fireflies.
But they can’t be killed. He won’t
listen. So they’ll find him. Soon.
The sound of a rifle slug hitting
A tin can, something splashes my face,
Only the softest of sighs. My tongue
Finds the splash. Salty. The little
Killing fireflies are done.
I’m crazier. Now.
