Papa's Poem Corner Episode 24: Serious Stuff

This may seem out of character for a blog this frivolous, but today's poems are of a slightly more serious nature. Once again, they were written for my poetry class. I rather like them.


Laying Pipes

I turned 19 the day the towers fell—
I stood in a ditch laying pipes
on my first day at a job.
Who starts a new job on their birthday?
You do what you have to do.

My foreman came racing up in his truck
with the news that we were under attack,
and the rest of the day we watched the skies
waiting for planes.

In time, those awkward moments will stop,
and no one will try to reconcile my birth
with so much hate and death,
and new hurts will replace the old pains,
and all the living and killing become
chapters our children read.


And now today's haiku (someday maybe I'll come up with titles for these haiku's, but titling my poems is always my least favorite part--if they are serious poems at least):


Snow-dipped mountains, tall
guardians of solitude.
Hear winter whisper.