Wow. So many layers. And appropriately for a poem about killing and vengeance - this one daggered me. I have feelings of vengeance- usually political vengeance. I am never the person inflicting the vengeful acts, I am wishing horror upon someone. But the wishing thoughts are disturbing. To me. I also don’t believe in the death penalty - not that that non belief is related to my vengeful thinking.
Cool! I never watched it, though I liked the idea of “real time” in the series.
I’ve also been wondering about the “kill baby Hitler” question and whether if baby Hitler had had a nurturing Jewish figure (nanny or teacher or friend) in his life whether things would have turned out differently or whether he was born with a mental disorder of psychopathy. I remember reading that Nixon was sympathetic to the American Indian cause during the occupation of Alcatraz (1969-1971) because he had an American Indian football coach he admired at Whittier College. Have you heard similar or conflicting stories about that time period and the President from within the community?
Your readers are pretty keen on life, death, tragedy, and comedy; however, I would bet in ‘2024, most USA’ers may not react at all and possibly even fade out halfway through this marvelous and ‘feelings digger’ of a poem. A remarkable experience you and your friends (in the poem) had with this future wasp bitten serial killer. Your novel, INDIAN KILLER, is pretty dang amazing. Wonder how this youthful ‘wasp experience’ added somehow to that incredible novel?
In my Fess Parker Davie Crocket days of shoot ‘em ups, rock fights, cap gunning, bee bee gun bird shooting, it was always “Cowboys and Indians” or drawings of Jap Zeroes exploding. Who was the ‘enemy’ in your games?
I preferred the other. A favorite Gifted student I taught once was both. His name was Sean Nez. He was an amazing artist who could draw a full cowboy on a bronco (or horse) starting with whatever was at the top (hat, hand, handkerchief) and finishing in oh, 20 minutes. Sean was also an award winning local rodeo star himself. Born and raised on the Isleta Pueblo (south of Albuquerque). All he wanted to do was join the Marines (rodeo too, art ? Not so much.)
I enjoyed sharing your poetry and prose when I taught in a community college. I would have enjoyed presenting this work, also, to my students. Thank you for yet another gem! Given the recent horror in Alabama, it is most timely.
I can't imagine as children we would have thought twice about it if someone can walked up and said, "That boy will kill 33 people when he grows up." It probably would have seemed like a cool fantasy at the time. We dream about killing when we're kids, playing cops and robbers, playing army, aiming broken sticks at our friends and throwing pine cones and yelling, "Grenade!" Dying is a fantasy when you're young. It happens to other people. If this was the 70s, we would have probably stood there in awe and listened to the wise person from the future tell the stories of gruesome murders, and then we'd go home and eat dinner and watch tv and maybe never remember it again.
“I’ll let you feel uncomfortable....”. This was where I began to cry. This weekend has been so terrible. It’s good to be together with these commenters and this poetry in our heartache and confusion. Thanks.
Not sure what I think of this poem yet Sherman. I tend to like your more lyric poems. It has brought to mind Frank Herbert's literary explorations in to prescience in the Dune books. Prescience is difficult for us mundane creatures to contemplate because at each decision node a new branch of possibilities comes into being. There ends up being too many for us to manage. So, what does this mean for your scenario? I don't know. Don't look at me. I'm only the piano player.
I recently wrote a poem about a story that brought up similar questions… I watched the first season of an anime called Blue-Eye Samurai, in which the main character is basically a glorified serial killer on a quest for vengeance, but you can sort of understand the drive, from flashbacks where the child is treated as a monster—by other children—for being a half-breed. Your future serial killer was already acting like a psychopath, so I don’t blame any of you for shunning him, but how much of it was his self-loathing and feeling like an outsider like the child in the anime? That is the question that comes up for me. Sometimes the anime victims are portrayed as deserving of death, so we feel satisfied like we would if your future serial killer had been struck down by God-in-the-wasp, and thus the uncomfortable questions you brought up are relevant in this case, as well.
I have never knowingly met a serial killer but have been in close proximity to their crimes. I grew up partially in PG county MD and for a while worked at the county hospital as the ER clerk. The unsolved 1970s DC freeway phantom killer left a body right off the exit where I drove by leaving work and the victim may have been there. A few years later I moved to Cape Cod and knew one of the victims of the late 1980s New Bedford highway killings. The DC killing were children and very young Black females. The NB killings were women with drug addictions. Haunting and tragic. Neither was ever solved.
Also just a few miles from my home right across the District line was the National Training School for Boys where Charles Manson was imprisoned in 1951. Soon to be serial killer by proxy.
Wow. So many layers. And appropriately for a poem about killing and vengeance - this one daggered me. I have feelings of vengeance- usually political vengeance. I am never the person inflicting the vengeful acts, I am wishing horror upon someone. But the wishing thoughts are disturbing. To me. I also don’t believe in the death penalty - not that that non belief is related to my vengeful thinking.
I love the map inside a poem! Guess what my geography students will be doing next week!
That'll be fun! Let me know how it goes!
Cool! I never watched it, though I liked the idea of “real time” in the series.
I’ve also been wondering about the “kill baby Hitler” question and whether if baby Hitler had had a nurturing Jewish figure (nanny or teacher or friend) in his life whether things would have turned out differently or whether he was born with a mental disorder of psychopathy. I remember reading that Nixon was sympathetic to the American Indian cause during the occupation of Alcatraz (1969-1971) because he had an American Indian football coach he admired at Whittier College. Have you heard similar or conflicting stories about that time period and the President from within the community?
The Nixon Administration's champion for Native rights was Spiro Agnew!
Your readers are pretty keen on life, death, tragedy, and comedy; however, I would bet in ‘2024, most USA’ers may not react at all and possibly even fade out halfway through this marvelous and ‘feelings digger’ of a poem. A remarkable experience you and your friends (in the poem) had with this future wasp bitten serial killer. Your novel, INDIAN KILLER, is pretty dang amazing. Wonder how this youthful ‘wasp experience’ added somehow to that incredible novel?
In my Fess Parker Davie Crocket days of shoot ‘em ups, rock fights, cap gunning, bee bee gun bird shooting, it was always “Cowboys and Indians” or drawings of Jap Zeroes exploding. Who was the ‘enemy’ in your games?
We also played cowboys and Indians and the more popular kids got to be...cowboys.
Wow. Very telling.
I preferred the other. A favorite Gifted student I taught once was both. His name was Sean Nez. He was an amazing artist who could draw a full cowboy on a bronco (or horse) starting with whatever was at the top (hat, hand, handkerchief) and finishing in oh, 20 minutes. Sean was also an award winning local rodeo star himself. Born and raised on the Isleta Pueblo (south of Albuquerque). All he wanted to do was join the Marines (rodeo too, art ? Not so much.)
Teaching has its rewards: the students.
James Welch wrote one or my favorite lines of poetry: "Indians make the best cowboys."
Amazing
Thank you, Gabriel.
I enjoyed sharing your poetry and prose when I taught in a community college. I would have enjoyed presenting this work, also, to my students. Thank you for yet another gem! Given the recent horror in Alabama, it is most timely.
Thoughtful poem. I always wonder if I've ever met someone who killed someone else. I'm not aware of any right now, but I must have. I must have.
It's strange to think of that, isn't it? How we might have sat next to a killer at a coffee shop.
I can't imagine as children we would have thought twice about it if someone can walked up and said, "That boy will kill 33 people when he grows up." It probably would have seemed like a cool fantasy at the time. We dream about killing when we're kids, playing cops and robbers, playing army, aiming broken sticks at our friends and throwing pine cones and yelling, "Grenade!" Dying is a fantasy when you're young. It happens to other people. If this was the 70s, we would have probably stood there in awe and listened to the wise person from the future tell the stories of gruesome murders, and then we'd go home and eat dinner and watch tv and maybe never remember it again.
The reaction of the adults to that kid was pretty muted. These days, they'd be far more vigilant...I hope.
Mind blowing piece.
Thank you, Marcy.
What an opening:
During my childhood, I played
war in an old reservation barn
with a future serial killer.
He was just a child, too,
Always, always love to read what you're doing. Thanks so much for this latest.
Thank you, Jennifer.
“I’ll let you feel uncomfortable....”. This was where I began to cry. This weekend has been so terrible. It’s good to be together with these commenters and this poetry in our heartache and confusion. Thanks.
Thank you, Camille.
Not sure what I think of this poem yet Sherman. I tend to like your more lyric poems. It has brought to mind Frank Herbert's literary explorations in to prescience in the Dune books. Prescience is difficult for us mundane creatures to contemplate because at each decision node a new branch of possibilities comes into being. There ends up being too many for us to manage. So, what does this mean for your scenario? I don't know. Don't look at me. I'm only the piano player.
It's a thinker for sure. I do believe though that God has a plan for us all, even serial killers.
We want to kill the killers--IF that is the only way to protect everybody else.
I don’t like the death penalty; but under extreme circumstances it might be best.
I recently wrote a poem about a story that brought up similar questions… I watched the first season of an anime called Blue-Eye Samurai, in which the main character is basically a glorified serial killer on a quest for vengeance, but you can sort of understand the drive, from flashbacks where the child is treated as a monster—by other children—for being a half-breed. Your future serial killer was already acting like a psychopath, so I don’t blame any of you for shunning him, but how much of it was his self-loathing and feeling like an outsider like the child in the anime? That is the question that comes up for me. Sometimes the anime victims are portrayed as deserving of death, so we feel satisfied like we would if your future serial killer had been struck down by God-in-the-wasp, and thus the uncomfortable questions you brought up are relevant in this case, as well.
This has never thinking of Jack Bauer in the TV series 24. He's the psychopath defending us.
Damn. That's all intense.
I have never knowingly met a serial killer but have been in close proximity to their crimes. I grew up partially in PG county MD and for a while worked at the county hospital as the ER clerk. The unsolved 1970s DC freeway phantom killer left a body right off the exit where I drove by leaving work and the victim may have been there. A few years later I moved to Cape Cod and knew one of the victims of the late 1980s New Bedford highway killings. The DC killing were children and very young Black females. The NB killings were women with drug addictions. Haunting and tragic. Neither was ever solved.
Also just a few miles from my home right across the District line was the National Training School for Boys where Charles Manson was imprisoned in 1951. Soon to be serial killer by proxy.