Zakuraba
07-18-2007, 05:03 AM
Hello everyone. I've recently (re)found these forums. Just thought I'd share some of my poetry and see if I can get any responses. Although I've been writing poetry scarcely on and off for about 5 years, I am still trying to do my best to expand my poetic horizons. Thanks for taking the time (hopefully) to read my work, if you can call it that.
Atomika
An explosion first
Then a burst of smoke
Followed by a cloud of dust
A threat neutralized
An enemy vanquished
Without ever setting foot on foreign soil
Or losing one man
A push of a button
The power to wield Death
From an armchair
War made convenient
Available now at all finer
Government locations.
Conscience sold separately
Reality
Let’s play cowboys and Indians
We all yell
Okay! Let’s pick teams, he says
I’m a cowboy, he’s a cowboy,
And you can be
The Indian
Puzzled, I ask
Why do I have to be
The Indian
Because no one ever wants
To be the Indian
Not even
The Indians
Cause someone’s gots to, he says
With a shrug
But it’s not fair, I pout
There’s too many of you
It’s not my fault, he refutes
Now let’s play, they scream
BANG BANG
I got you! I got you!
You’re dead redskin!
Let’s play again!
This sucks, I complain
You guys always win
How about I win just this once
Don’t be stupid, he scowls
Indians can’t win
The Engine Driver
I work on this railroad. Southbound Railway 251.
Day in, day out, I ride the lightning
On a ship of steel through a sea of tracks.
I’ve passed through 6 states and 122 cities.
Not including the small towns.
I’ve seen and greeted just about everyone
From the Pacific to Fort Worth
But I’ve never met a single soul.
Oh, I chit and chat with the occasional passenger
Sometimes I show ‘em pictures of my girls
If they ask.
But I never really meet them.
Never really know them.
Not for one second.
To them, I’m just another part of this locomotive.
Embedded in its very framework.
A fixture on this damn train.
Like the coal I shovel, my heart and soul are burned into it.
My time and energy used up
and engulfed by the flames of its furnace.
Day by day I grow more distant.
From what, I’m not even sure of anymore.
My eyes become so accustomed to the passing scenery,
That I need not even be awake to conduct.
My routes become so routine,
customary that I feel as if
I no longer drive the train.
No longer am I the conductor.
The train drives me. Conducts my very behavior
…my very actions.
As if I too, am just another passenger on its course
Only unlike the other commuters, I have no destination
No boarding station in my horizons.
No arrival point at the end of my trip.
On and on I travel.
Miles pass by seamlessly.
Minutes become blurred until the days
and weeks
and months
turn into one long movie reel of screen shots
Depicting only sunrise and sunset, repeatedly.
It gets so bad that soon enough
the only way I have of telling time
is by counting railroad spikes.
Like sheep in my sleep, they pass by aimlessly.
Only I don’t sleep. Not anymore.
At every station I stop at, I see new faces
A dozen passengers step off.
A dozen more step on to take their place.
All of them, at some point, leaving
Except me
Never me
Atomika
An explosion first
Then a burst of smoke
Followed by a cloud of dust
A threat neutralized
An enemy vanquished
Without ever setting foot on foreign soil
Or losing one man
A push of a button
The power to wield Death
From an armchair
War made convenient
Available now at all finer
Government locations.
Conscience sold separately
Reality
Let’s play cowboys and Indians
We all yell
Okay! Let’s pick teams, he says
I’m a cowboy, he’s a cowboy,
And you can be
The Indian
Puzzled, I ask
Why do I have to be
The Indian
Because no one ever wants
To be the Indian
Not even
The Indians
Cause someone’s gots to, he says
With a shrug
But it’s not fair, I pout
There’s too many of you
It’s not my fault, he refutes
Now let’s play, they scream
BANG BANG
I got you! I got you!
You’re dead redskin!
Let’s play again!
This sucks, I complain
You guys always win
How about I win just this once
Don’t be stupid, he scowls
Indians can’t win
The Engine Driver
I work on this railroad. Southbound Railway 251.
Day in, day out, I ride the lightning
On a ship of steel through a sea of tracks.
I’ve passed through 6 states and 122 cities.
Not including the small towns.
I’ve seen and greeted just about everyone
From the Pacific to Fort Worth
But I’ve never met a single soul.
Oh, I chit and chat with the occasional passenger
Sometimes I show ‘em pictures of my girls
If they ask.
But I never really meet them.
Never really know them.
Not for one second.
To them, I’m just another part of this locomotive.
Embedded in its very framework.
A fixture on this damn train.
Like the coal I shovel, my heart and soul are burned into it.
My time and energy used up
and engulfed by the flames of its furnace.
Day by day I grow more distant.
From what, I’m not even sure of anymore.
My eyes become so accustomed to the passing scenery,
That I need not even be awake to conduct.
My routes become so routine,
customary that I feel as if
I no longer drive the train.
No longer am I the conductor.
The train drives me. Conducts my very behavior
…my very actions.
As if I too, am just another passenger on its course
Only unlike the other commuters, I have no destination
No boarding station in my horizons.
No arrival point at the end of my trip.
On and on I travel.
Miles pass by seamlessly.
Minutes become blurred until the days
and weeks
and months
turn into one long movie reel of screen shots
Depicting only sunrise and sunset, repeatedly.
It gets so bad that soon enough
the only way I have of telling time
is by counting railroad spikes.
Like sheep in my sleep, they pass by aimlessly.
Only I don’t sleep. Not anymore.
At every station I stop at, I see new faces
A dozen passengers step off.
A dozen more step on to take their place.
All of them, at some point, leaving
Except me
Never me