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Open Poetry #48
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Krawdad
Member Elite
since 2001-01-03
Posts 2597


0 posted 2013-11-22 01:14 AM


November 22, 1963


I was in uniform
on the drill floor
It was competition day
one squad at a time

My fellow students were doing well
we were headed for a win
all the moves were correct
all the uniforms neatly aligned

But I remember nothing
of the winners or the losers
I honestly don't know
how the squad I led finished

No one cared how it turned out
even as we finished the drill
our actions were on auto-pilot
our heads swimming in fear

The President was dead the Colonel had said!
Were we suddenly at war?
Who could have done such a thing?
We were nearly paralyzed!

But there was duty to be served
leading a daily honor guard
to lower the half-staff flag
until the acute fear subsided

The chemistry of the brain
fixes such an unexpected event
much like a sculptor would reveal the form
as if done in an instant

112113 / 2222

[This message has been edited by Krawdad (11-22-2013 10:47 AM).]

© Copyright 2013 Krawdad - All Rights Reserved
OwlSA
Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa
1 posted 2013-11-22 05:37 AM


This has me in tears, Ed.  I can see the whole thing in front of me - all of you - and the indomitable spirit of "the show must go on", except that wasn't a show.  

I relive President Kennedy's death in my mind too.  It was my first year out of school and I was at a teachers' training college.  The world had its heart numbed and cried oceans that day - and even today, 50 years later, the horror and devastation and inhumanity of it feels as real as it did then and the waste of a human life, and such a wonderful one, as well as all other wasted lives, is a tough truth to accept.  

Rabbie Burns, and you and Yann, all speak of man's inhumanity to man, so clearly . . . when will such inhumanity end?  

If only each one of us in the world would look after only our own actions, there wouldn't be any of this . . . the simplicity of this frustrates me beyond belief - we each only have one person to control.  Despite all the "buts" and the declarations of complications, it is truly this simple.

Owl

paderewski
Member
since 2011-02-04
Posts 287
Louisiana, USA
2 posted 2013-11-22 09:22 AM


Everyone knows where they were on this date. Your poem was a fitting remembrance. Thank you for your service.

~*~ My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them. ~*~

Michael
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-13
Posts 7666
California
3 posted 2013-11-22 05:12 PM


I was not alive to have such an imprint etched in mind as you have... but you my friend have etched one for me.  Thank you.

Michael

2islander2
Member Ascendant
since 2008-03-12
Posts 6825
by the sea
4 posted 2013-11-23 02:23 AM


hello krawdad, it is so intense how we can be marked by an event, especially one like this, when a  remarkable person is shot in the street, you make this alive now, and we can mesure the importance of emotions, I was 6 when it happens and it was my first emtionnal shock, thanks for the deep and fascinating poem,
yann

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