Poetry, Part One

From the late 1960's until the early 1980's, I wrote poetry. I also kept a journal. My East Los Angeles Junior College (they were not called Community Colleges then) English instructor Miss Nancy King encouraged me to write poetry and to keep a journal. Perhaps she knew that they could each keep me company during the lean times of my years ahead. The following was my first organized poem. I wrote it after reading Dante's INFERNO for class, inspired by the Terza rima rhyme scheme. Miss King helped by lopping off some of the opening lines and a few lines at the end that were unnecessary. In the college creative writing book, MILESTONE, it received honorable mention in the Spring of 1969:

Tourist Trap

Now only tourists poke
around the ruins just for fun,
taking souvenirs away. No one spoke

of girls throwing wilted lives toward the sun,
while more boys went to war although some returned
in boxes, parts, and pieces.

They explored, exploded, and ignored atrocities
while crawling around on their feet
building weapons, so don't waste your pities

on them. They starved for the food they could not eat.

Obviously, the then-interminable Vietnam War was going on. I also remembered scenes of young women joyously throwing flowers upon departing soldiers in World War I. Someday, our war would be over and, likely, be a distant memory and even, as with previous wars, a place where people went to pay homage or to recall where they had served.

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