Lucks trap raven

Things have a way of happening that at the time seem not that big a deal, but actually are huge. Almost a year and a half ago after hearing a longtime friend refer to his blog for the fifth or tenth time that year I asked him how to find it. He told me, and I went. I was amazed at what I was reading. It wasn't the smarmy crap that the rednecks and hicks that I grew up with made mockery of. In fact it was amazing. I read another of his posts and penned a poem in response. The first poem I ever wrote…I had made a poem in the past but due to complications I wasn't able to actually write it until last year. And in the just less than a year and a half I have penned about one hundred and fifty poems. Some are good…very…some not so good. But I find I am in love with writing, and that includes poetry. The rebel in me keeps me in free form, but I have penned a few form poems and I am able to do them credibly. Christopher has been a twenty plus year friend, and I would say he is the closest friend I have on the face of the planet; his words more than any others put me on this path. His encouragement brought me a host of friends with the gift of words. He put a post up a while back and I wrote a poem in the comments. The other day he posted, and in that post linked back to thepost from the past, so I went back to look at it again… it inspired a new poem in me. Today I would like to share those poems with you, and also another poem Christopher turned me on to a while back

…………….

I thought

Thought I saw a raven today

It looked at me with intent

Harbinger of what…

My day of course!

Like I said

Thought I saw a raven today

With intent it looked on me

From a faded blue roof

A crow, not a raven

A crow heralded my day

Caw, caw

Chris McQueeney 9/30/11

Steel toothed

That bird I thought

I saw today

Was a raven that

Had got away from

The steel gates

Of death’s trap

 

That bird I thought

I saw today

Luck’s trap raven

That got away

Warning me of Death's

Steel toothed grin

Chris McQueeney    8/17/12

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,

And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.

Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,

I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.

When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Randall Jarrell  1945

Jarrell, who served in the Army Air Force, provided the following explanatory note:

"A ball turret was a plexiglass sphere set into the belly of a B-17 or B-24, and inhabited by two .50 caliber machine guns and one man, a short small man. When this gunner tracked with his machine guns a fighter attacking his bomber from below, he revolved with the turret; hunched upsidedown in his little sphere. The fighters which attacked him were armed with cannon firing explosive shells. The hose was a steam hose."