Childhood Catharses

The past?

The beginning?

Childhood remembered?

Which childhood?

The one getting dim?

The one that won’t go away?

The one called fearful

            Where cobwebs now lace

The well opening once sealed

By board and nail

That hole to Hell

Mother warned

The one remembered

for confused emotions?

The war bonds brought home each month

The coverall you hung each night

Dusted with gun powder astray

From arms plant vigil

KEEP THE BOYS SAFE

The billboard said

KEEP THEM ARMED

Even as my BB gun remained

Locked away

Boys don’t war, she prayed

Boys don’t war? I mumbled

Confusion made ready

As uncle and father said goodbye

Whispering letters

The halo ringed snapshots

Atop the mantel they stood

Proud to have survived

Proud of smudged droplets

The red now yellow with age

And we pretended

You and I

With slingshot

And bean-shooter

The Nazis were dead by the dozen each day

Each day of childhood then 

Mustn’t fall asleep ‘til…

Soon

Soon mother will have her overalls

Soon

Ammunition production will stop

Soon

She said it often

All during

That

Childhood then 

Which childhood you ask?

The one still wrapping us all

With invisible chains of

Technology’s vapor

Our bean-shooter and slingshot

Now asleep in dust

As joystick stays gripped

Our heads slumped downward

An hour eternal maybe

Avoiding that foxhole to hell

Our board and nail hole

Now an open bong

An IED of mind waiting to detonate

That childhood?

Or the one you never escape

The maximum security fortress

That “be a good boy” entrapment

That “your father must be remembered” enshrinement

That

Church going

Apron clinging

Tear drenched

Towel of 12 rounds

Whose bell never stops

That says

Daddy is watching”

Be strong

Be brave

That childhood?

My BB gun now hangs

On nails atop the door

The entrance to childhoods missed

Never opened

Sealed shut forever

A caring mother

A missing father

Meaning well 

Now but memory
like the sunlight

Only the attic sees

That place where

Coverall and parent’s dreams gather age

While

Childhood

Rages

On