Trigger warning: sad anti-war poem. This is another post that can count for Monday's, but it's going live now in order to fit into a link-up.
For this week's Poets & Storytellers United prompt, poems were composed by reflecting on good first lines from full-length books. A surprising number of adults chose the opening line from Peter Pan. I chose the opening line from Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, which is another book I've heard many people rave about but somehow managed not to read for myself. It's about a seasonal event at the Cat Sanctuary: Not every year, but some years, in July or August, pilots practicing flying low fly over our woodlot. They always sound as if they were peeling off the roof of the house. They've never actually touched it. And their practice flights have always stirred sombre thoughts of what they're practicing for. Because piloting a plane doesn't call for height or bulging biceps, it's a job the Armed Forces have often assigned to women--girls, really, since they recruit people between ages 18 and 25, who are still growing. So the opening line of Ford Madox Ford's Good Soldier, "This is the saddest story I have ever heard," seemed apropos, although I didn't use it.
A screaming comes across the sky.
The pilots practice flying low.
Some of them will be sent to die.
A learning-challenged little guy
Retrained his brain; now watch him go!
A screaming comes across the sky.
The mother of twins, and that's why
She's never married, rides the flow.
Some of them will be sent to die.
A warrior of the Hualapai
Enlisted bravery to show.
A screaming comes across the sky.
All of them ask themselves: Will I
Go home the person my friends know,
Or will I be one sent to die?
The children wave and point up high.
The livestock scatter: they don't know
Why the screaming comes across the sky,
Nor why the pilots are sent to die.
You wrote this as an observer which was a fine job. Mrs. Jim's older brother died flying his P38 Fighter on a bombing run over Italy, shot down by the German Army. He was very young, had to get parental permission to enter. We have a nice pile of references to that, coming from the Army (there was no Air Force back then).
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Beautifully executed villanelle! And appropriately thought-provoking in its content.
ReplyDeleteEvery word of your beautifully composed villanelle resonates, stays with the reader long after monitor goes dark.
ReplyDeleteYour poem is beautifully executed. It is indeed a sad story. Nobody wins in a war.
ReplyDeleteThank you, poets all.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the warming. War poems never sit well with me. The echo of those souls sent to die linger...
ReplyDeleteThe opening line hooks you right in. Such sadness and truth in this.
ReplyDeleteYes, there were lots of great opening lines to choose from! Thank you, Purple Pen!
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