More Poetry by Robert R. Woods

January 4, 2013



 

Well, It sure took awhile (not as long as Eliot spent on Prufrock). Here's my first poem of the new year. I wanted to play with internal rhyming (that's what I call it) and rhythm. I feel good about it because I really paid close attention to structure. I DID want to write something about guns and our attitude towards the mass murders we have seen in America in the last year. Quite a few, sad to say. And we really never do anything about. Why? Well, takes a lot of will to stay with it... especially butting heads with the NRA. But we may, this time, do something about it. I doubt this poem will affect the outcome of our fight against gun violence, but it's pretty much the way I see things.

 

 

The Gunny Boys

 

The gunny boys ride high today, they’re  shootin’ up the mornin’ sky.

Ragged jeans and tractor hats, six packs of beer, all blurry eyed.

They beat the dawnin’ sun into submission with their semis and

their hallow pointed ammunition. They don’t need permission

‘cos the Bill of Rights done give’em liberty to do just what the heck

they please on private property. The stratosphere is free, you see,

it don’t belong to you nor me, to none but God Almighty! And He,

Himself sports a B.A.R. He done scored from that war way back

in ‘63. So, He don’t mind a few stray rounds a buzzin’ by His golden

crown… although the angels up on high do tend to frown and rightfully

become alarmed when redneck gun boys armed with AK-47s

blow to waste their sweet suburban homes in heaven.

Ol’ Bo and me sit on my porch scratchin’ at our fleas and watch them

drunken gunny boys across the gravel street blow tiny holes in ever after.

How they smirk each time the blasts sends mama’s scrawny cat a runnin’

for safe haven underneath my daddy’s Ford— But.. oh…  my… Lord.

That skinny redneck with them sharp gray eyes that dirty AC/DC T-shirt

wrapped around his scarecrow frame… Yeah, that goober’s lookin’ right

at me. He humps a 12 gauge pump and licks his lips and moans and grunts

and groans— and  I hopes it’s the only fuckin’ he’ll ever know.

 
Luckily for me, a flock of barnyard geese take to the air; he turns

that red-eyed stare on them and  starts’ta hum a Sunday hymn.

The friendly geese ascend and fly around his greasy head… and then,

then… BLAM! BLAM! BLAM…! Three giant birds hit ground like

lead… dead.  All them other geese flee for the shelter of the Blackjack

trees over on the far side of the fence. Redneck’s drunken friends, they

look at him, surprised...he smiles a toothy grin, says, “What?” And boy,

they laugh, they laugh so hard, they laugh so loud, they slap him

proudly on the back as they stagger to their truck.

My dog and me watch helplessly as the pickup rumbles out of sight

leaving in its violent wake red clouds of bloodied earth and down

that settles with a graveyard hush upon the recently deceased.

And Bo, he gazes up at me, but I can’t look at him. That mangy

cat crawls out from underneath my daddy’s car and joins us on

the steps…. My daddy’s flathead Ford? Man, it never ran for shit.

Rrw o1-o4-13