Lillian is hosting today and prompts a 44-word poem that must include the word imagine (or a form thereof). Click here for the pub page or here to find more quadrilles.
Dip Stick
When I heard that our friend Jack
was charged by Olive
with checking Sally’s oil,
Sarcastically I said,
(with a semi-evil grin below a slow eye roll)
“Imagine that!”
I’d bet that Jack’s measure of success
was how often
Jack got that Willie wet.
Look both ways because some fools just cannot stop what they do.
Mind the gaps when you check your dip stick for fluid levels.
When he emotionally told me—
he confessed, he squirmed—
with the guilt and shame
that had long lived in his gut.
For him,
it was a hard story to tell.
Surrendering emotions,
“If evil were evil enough;
if good were good enough.
“I would find the courage.
I would fight for right,
one war to end war—forever!”
He was conscripted. Drafted!
It was what he could do
for his country. To serve. To kill
(or be killed).
Maybe he’d find glory. Heroism.
Maybe death.
But wait.
He opposed this war.
He was to fight and kill
but he hated this war.
“Is there another war
more to my liking?”
He felt that killing and dying
were not in his peacenik milk nor
cup of tea.
“Send another,” he protested.
He was ordered to report.
But he was too good for this war.
Too smart. Too woke!
Too compassionate.
He was above it.
But war he did.
And he killed so as not
to be killed. To survive.
And when his war
was no more,
he came home
to discover
that he too,
was no more.
Sadly, he missed it.
Look both ways in war and peace
because each is merely the absence of the other.
Mind the gaps, the traps, the mines, and bombs.
Win your battles to lose the war.
***
Inspired by “On the Rainy River,” a section in the book The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien.
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