Gifts From Father

Oh Father, from whose ordnance

Did you find bullets and grenades

To hurl in my direction?

You must have driven the mile down the road

To your neighbor's shed

Breaking the lock deftly

And stealing inside the cache

Finding just what your wicked mind

Required for such a task

Your eyes undressing each bullet

Drinking in their streamlined figures

Fingertips tapping their neat noses

As one does laying next to a lover

After a bout of heated passion

Oh how you must have reveled in your lust!

The smell of gunpowder and death

Elicits a sigh from your depths

Your hands steady, but your heart,

Erratically raging in your cage,

Spreads a gap-toothed grin across your evil visage

Your truck sits lower to the ground

Laden with its monstrous payload

As you speed away towards the freeway

A throaty cackle the only sound heard above

The music blaring out of the radio

I'm comin' to get you boy

I'm gonna make you dead 

Author's Note

Like most of my work, this piece is unfinished. Just wanted to get it up to see if there would be some input as to corrections and/or directions in which I could take this.

All comments and criticisms welcome otherwise. Thanks for reading!

Reviews

[June Reynard]

Hi James,

First of all I really this piece. It's haunting and fast-paced and that is very unique for a poem, and if you wanted you could turn this piece into a flash fiction piece. If I had to relate this piece to another authors I would say Edgar Allan Poe (this is just at the top of my head).
And though Edgar Allan Poe is a great author I'm gonna have to say "Never say Nevermore", and I mean this in the literal sense. What I'm trying to say is be careful with diction and try to stay away from Shakespearean wording. Lines that stuck out to me were
Finding just what your wicked mind
Required for such a task
and
As one does laying next to a lover
After a bout of heated passion

Oh how you must have reveled in your lust!

If you wouldn't normally talk this way in real life then don't write this way in your poetry.
But let me backtrack for a second... Don't take my advice if your piece was meant for another time frame.
Oh, another thing. I would drop the words wicked and evil.
Though you very nearly hit the mark in describing a sinister madman, actually using the words wicked and evil somehow left a gaps in describing exactly what is wicked and evil in your poem. You want the readers to come to the conclusion that the man you have invented is nefarious and not have to tell them that he is.
I think dialogue in your poem could help in this case. Maybe it's not necessarily something he is doing, but something he says. I understand that the last two lines are meant to be dialogue but I'm talking about more.
Well I hope my critique helped and keep writing!
June Reynard

[CLBombay]

Ahhh scary!! When you capitalize Father, do you mean that this is God? Definitely an intense and good piece. So much description in this, so I see absolutely every picture that you are painting. This poem also reminded me of tv shows that depict mobsters getting ready to kill people who haven't paid them their money yet.
Quite good - I don't know where you should go with it next, since it already captures my attention the whole way through and already leaves me with a satisfying last few words at the end there.

[James O'Rourke]

Thanks for checking out this poem CL.

In regards to your first question, the capitalization of Father isn't really meant to be God, but upon rereading this poem, I realize that my dad could very likely be a personal God for me. I think I just capitalized it because this man is literally my Father. I also felt that I was speaking pretty formally of him, so why not go all the way and capitalize it. Almost it's like some title for a man who may be damned (religious reference? ZING!!!)

I definitely get the TV mobster feel I gave my dad. Gathering the munitions from a dark room and savoring the process of preparing for a little work. Wasn't really aiming for this, but it's kind of a cool image that you found in this one.

I'm thinking you may be right about leaving it. This one does feel a little more complete than a lot of my work. I'll leave it for now and see if anything else evolves from it later.

Thanks for reading!

[CLBombay]

Keep up the good work, James! You really inspire me to keep writing. And I'm not just saying that.