You enlisted in the war on Time long ago
Re-upping with every child
Renewing your resolve to win
To overthrow a tyrant that takes everything
Even as it gives us everything it takes
You went to the front with the latest tools
Digitization, pixelation
Capturing moments by the thousands
Sequestering them in electric prisons
Back in the day, you might’ve stockpiled silver nitrate
Interrogations held in dark rooms
Water boarding your captives
In a later generation,
You would farm out the dirty details
Privatizating the processing of your prisoners
Never knowing how they might be returned
Every soldier knows it’s all for naught
Kodachrome memories lost in black boxes or faded in the sun
Imaginary clouds burst, bringing real tears
Time claims victory any way it can
I, too, fight the futile fight
I’ve tried your tools and techniques
But my aim is always off
So I find myself stuck in the old ways
Using a weapon handed down across generations
Its unreliability is legendary
It’s sights askew, blurry
Too focused on glaring mistakes
Too willing to be deceived
But sometimes
In that moment of deception
Everything glows, perfectly filtered
And I think: Mission accomplished
Time is held hostage
Whenever you walk into a room
About the Creator
Sean A.
A happy guy that tends to write a little cynically. Just my way of dealing with the world outside my joyous little bubble.
Violence Begets
"Any last words, cowboy?" "None you'd understand, sodbuster." "Funny. That's Marshall Sodbuster to you. But I meant some last nugget that would help us in the adjudication of the myriad offenses counted against you and your gang. I wasn't asking for penitence."
By Adam Diehl5 days ago in Fiction
Comments (6)
This feels so richly layered, one reading could never be enough!
Stunning work, Shaun. I always get to the end of your poems and think "This is so good, I have to read this again." They're like a really good amusement park ride that you get off and proceed to get in line for again. All the military and POW references were carried off perfectly and I can't possibly pick out any favorite lines because they were all so good and seamlessly threaded together.
This one’s a powerful reflection on the endless battle against time! The way you compare fighting time to a war, using tools like photography and memories, is just brilliant. It feels like a war where no one truly wins, but the fleeting moments of perfection are worth the struggle. So thought-provoking!
You did it very well.
—Kodachrome memories lost in black boxes. That line gave me pause. Excellent writing, Shaun!
What a sad poem about war. I cringed when I read it because my son fought on the front lines of Desert Storm. It was a stressful time for us. Nicely written however, all too true.