What is it about high school
football players
Dressed in second skins and
rain soaked masks
Living our pastimes like
unpaid mercenaries
Living our pastimes like
unpaid mercenaries
Content to bleed
on newly cut grass
if it means they’ve got a chance at fame. No, a chance at
relevance. War is much nicer to our boys than organized sports. At least in the
trenches they wear their dreams without shame. They can cry because death is so
much bigger than a loss to Avery High School. And I can cry for them because
they fought for a
grand old flag
a high flying flag
waving with the
frailty of a dying man
Edges tattered like
Hand-me-down fatigues
Those stars and stripes
never looked so
cruel
as they did the day you came home, wrapped in mahogany and
sealed in primer. We all wept because you had lost. And it was okay. It was noble.
All fields hold dying dreams of crying men but some dreams are more heroic than
others and high school trophies and touchdowns are not. When I lowered you into
the ground, I wondered if
the grass still held
the memory of you before
you left
Could it still taste your
teenage blood
that stained the fields with
simple dreams of
simple victories
*This poem was influenced by the writings of Sherman Alexie
This is a really great poem! The style of of alternating between the short line stanzas and the longer prose like paragraphs is extremely interesting and very cool how you can use it to kind of comment and clarify on your own poem. The comparison between football players and soldiers is interesting but the significance is lost on me. Is there someone who you knew that was a football player-turned soldier? I really liked the lines about the soldier/war but I'd appreciate it if you did more with the football metaphor.
ReplyDeleteOh man, the line, "as they did the day you came home, wrapped in mahogany and sealed in primer." I like the shifting between prose and poetry-- it kind of brings out the poetry in everyday narratives. This is not an everyday narrative, though, and you write about a really tragic happenstance in a powerful way.
ReplyDelete"War is much nicer to our boys than organized sports."-- this was a pretty bold statement. At first, it rubbed me the wrong way, but when I read it again, I realized that this line really drives the whole poem.
Is the poem about how it's more heroic to die in war than in a sports injury? But death is death is death is always tragic?
Wow. First comment.
ReplyDeleteSecond- "if it means they’ve got a chance at fame. No, a chance at relevance. War is much nicer to our boys than organized sports. At least in the trenches they wear their dreams without shame.' Particularly the first line in that stanza- so powerful, so raw. To be able to appreciate the psychological workings of organized sports, to claim war is more kind- that's bold and innovative and deserves serious props.
There was a pretty strong shift in the end towards military death, so I'm not sure where the end of it is going- are you using sports just as a comparison to death in war, and its really all about war? Or not? either way, maybe clarify that a bit. gorgeous writing and imagery.