My Big Break - Unredacted

What I really wrote....

This will all make a lot more sense if you read my earlier post from 26 October titled “My Big Break” ….

Anyway, after a whole hilarity of rejections, Ulitarra - a fairly prominent Australian literary journal of the 1990’s - took a poem I submitted to them and actually published it, but only the first 6 lines out of 30.

Let’s just say my emotions were… mixed.

For anyone curious, here for the first time in publishing history is the complete, unredacted, unexpurgated and entirely unexceptional text of my poem “Gun Lobby.” (Non-poets will immediately spot that it’s actually about 62 lines, not 30. This is why the world needs non-Poets).

But first a photo - chosen because it is one of only two photos in my whole collection with any reference whatsoever to guns :)

Gun Lobby

Mouth  like the muzzle
of a semi-automatic -
repeating
the same words
over and over and over.
No need to stop
and reload the brain -
just keep on shooting.
                       
The words spit hate
like bullets and
like bullets,
once left the gun
they fly
beyond control.
Unable to create
they destroy
instead.
                       
I see my children
caught in the crossfire
from the television.
They dive for cover
into the toy box.
                       
bang bang bang bang bang
you can't get me!
                                 
bang
you're dead kapow.
Its my tormenator gun Dad!
                       
Dad …..
you're my friend Dad.
                       
I duck a laser blast
aimed at head height
by my son,
remembering my neighbour
Charlie who at age 6 stole
my secret agent camera gun -
and I never  saw it again.
                       
Never forgave him either,
the bastard.
                       
Bang you're dead Charlie!
Bang bang bang bang.

Bumper stickers snarl 
"If guns are outlawed only
outlaws will have guns" 
but I for one
will be glad to lose
the ambiguity of not knowing
who is my neighbour,
who my enemy.
                        
The Gun Lobby
knows already.
Their placards read -
"I love my country
but I fear my government,"
and I fear too -
fear my government
may be too weak to
control its silly children,
and their no longer
childish toys.
                       
Where's my tormenator gun, Dad?
                       
Eh?
                       
Bang!
                       

And this is the other one…. (Me. Circa 1966).