art music poetry

Poem: I Had A Friend, A Sniper

by
sniper
photo: U.S. Marine Corps (public domain)

I Had A Friend
by Ron Olsen

I had a friend
A sniper
Not a movie
A sniper
Who came back unable to live with us

When we went shooting
He never missed

He was in the jungle
Tied to a tree
Until he nearly died from
Some vile amoebic rot
Put him in a hospital in Japan

He came back
Married a woman
Kept a big spider
And a snake
Kept them in aquariums on shelves
With a giant hookah in the middle of the room

He’d let the spider out
Let it crawl around
And the snake
Inside your shirt
If you weren’t careful
He still needed some hazard
Some threat
Some kind of edge

We smoked
And then his young wife
Would coax him into bed
Where he slept with a 45
And the dreams
Of what had passed

Still uncomfortable without his back to the wall
He’d seen too much
I guess
Felt too much
Perhaps
Done too much
The marriage did not last
So he left to build sailboats

He was my friend
But I let him go
Threw him away like so much trash
I was unsure
Afraid of what he might do
You can’t be too careful
Around people who play with spiders

I had a friend
He was a sniper
He came back from the war
And died young
I could have done more
But maybe not
I’m sorry

I no longer knew who you were

Reality
Or a story
To make money
For some Hollywood producer
To glorify war
And reassure ourselves of who we are
How strong we are
How deadly we are
How right we are
How decent we are
That killing can be justified

I had a friend
He was a sniper
Now he’s dead
Died young from jungle rot
There’s no movie about his life
Just reality

I’m so damn sorry

© Ron Olsen – All rights reserved

Attic Man |A Poem and Painting by DMJ

by
Attic Man painting
Attic Man

Attic Man
dweller in attics.
Do they find you there
did they turn your eyes to the wall
Attic Man
Man of Questions
Were you just bad or
you just bothered them or
you didn’t go with the couch and
your questions were old, Attic Man
you asked too many of them and they said
they said
they said
Turn away attic dude
turn away from these questions of
why we couldn’t get along
and why we let our religion get in our way and
why we fought with each other
instead of baling
baling like crazy together.
Why don’t you just look at the
darkness of the wall and ask
why we don’t care
enough for
Her
to save Her

So We Dance | Poem By Ron Olsen

by
we dance
So We Dance by Ron Olsen

So We Dance
…………….By Ron Olsen

I danced on his grave
The dance of the living death

So little time left
For any of us
Left behind
No cause
No purpose
So I danced

It seemed like the thing to do
It felt right

Go away
Just leave
From under the ground
Deep below
In a wooden box
The protest came
I called out to myself
As I danced

It seemed like the thing to do

I felt no pain
No guilt
Just the ongoing
Fullness of revenge running out
Pointless revenge
Spiritual self-immolation

Not a part of the whole
An observer
Separate from the rest
Outside of myself
Watching me as I danced
Unfulfilled
A witness to futility

Interaction, contraction, reaction
Shooting craps again and again
Until it ends
And the Reaper grins
At our naïve failure to live for something
Other than ourselves
Other than to be
And to be satisfied with being

So we dance
Pretending we have meaning
Giving us the courage to believe we have something
Beyond one another

Suddenly it’s 69 again
At some grungy bar in Minneapolis
CS&N are screaming
Rejoice!
We have no choice
But to carry on

Now it is sampling
Then it was stealing
Either way, the truth still works

So we dance

Better to dance
Than to lie down and die

© Ron Olsen – all rights revert to author following publication

 

 

Ron Olsen

Ron Olsen is a veteran cross-platform journalist based in Los Angeles, California, United States.……Ron Olsen at Wiki
He writes, “I’m a semi-retired Peabody Award winning journalist who now writes
essays and an occasional poem.”

Ron’s  Site is The Working Reporter News, opinion and resources for journalists

Ron’s blog web news & commentary

 

  

  

  

 

………….art by david michael jackson….”The Dancers”

Roger McGough Liverpool’s Poet

by

Roger McGough
 
McGough was born in Litherland, Lancashire, to the north of Liverpool, the city with which he is firmly associated, and was educated at the University of Hull at a time when Philip Larkin was the librarian there. Returning to Merseyside in the early 1960s, he worked as a teacher and, with John Gorman, organised arts events. After meeting Mike McGear the trio formed The Scaffold, working the Edinburgh Festival until they signed to Parlophone records in 1966. The group scored several hit records, reaching number one in the UK Singles Chart in 1968 with their version of “Lily The Pink”. McGough wrote the lyrics for many of the group’s songs and also recorded the musical comedy/poetry album McGough and McGear.
 
McGough was also responsible for much of the humorous dialogue in The Beatles’ animated film, Yellow Submarine, although he did not receive an on-screen credit. At about the same time a selection of his poems was published, along with work from Adrian Henri and Brian Patten, in a best-selling paperback volume of verse entitled The Mersey Sound, first published in 1967, revised in 1983 and again in 2007.
 
McGough won a Cholmondeley Award in 1998, and was awarded the CBE in June 2004. He holds an honorary MA from Nene College of Further Education;[citation needed] was awarded an honorary degree from Roehampton University in 2006; as well as an honorary doctorate from the University of Liverpool on 3 July 2006. He was Fellow of Poetry at Loughborough University (1973-5) and Honorary Professor at Thames Valley University (1993).
 
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