Friday, August 10, 2007

Friday Poetry: Randall Jarrell

Randall Jarrell
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I feel into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from the 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.

1 comment:

  1. really awesome poem gemma. it reminds me of this:

    "Epitaph on a Tyrant" -- W. H. Auden

    Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
    And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
    He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
    And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
    When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
    And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

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