My father's guns
by Kalikiano Kalei — Read all 118 poems by Kalikiano Kalei
My father was a military man, a careerist officer who trained General Pershing's AEF enlistees to kill the Hun at the Camp Gordon Norcross Rifle Range in Georgia in 1918. He was not a hunter, he was not obsessed with guns, he never killed anything in his entire life. And yet, at home one entire wall was filled with guns of every conceivable type. He was a sharpshooter and an expert rifleman with the Springfield '08. He taught others to kill, as an Irish Buddhist Catholic... Father forgive us.
Saturday, November 17, 2018
My father’s guns
A wall of death
Confronts me
every time I walk
Into his study.
Arrayed neatly,
Each sinister steel shape
Reaches out
With talons of rapacious
Metallurgical terror
To snatch my heart
From its benign repose
And transport it
To a hellish otherwhen
Existing only
In darkest dreams
Of cynical fatefulness.
My father has been dead now
For more than 68 years.
He never killed
A single living creature
In his entire life.
Father, forgive us
For we know
what we do.
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Just like your dad's guns, we have not killed anyone.
My wife packs a 38 but that's just for protection.
I have many lethal weapons in our home in various places.
They are put there to protect and defend ourselves. Period!
I think the problem in America is we don't have a place to
contain many of our countries mentally ill citizens.
They get angry and pop out of nowhere and if they can get
a gun, they will start shooting like crazy and mad persons.
Chicago has the toughest gun control laws and they boast more crime!
So gun control is not the solution. It's people who kill not guns!
So what do we do with the thousands of mentally ill citizens?
That's a start. If we just recognize the problem.
The solution may be to have mental institutions that really help.
Suggestions are very welcome. Something MUST be done! Amen!
PS: Very informative poem. Well done!
Ron