Thursday, June 17, 2010

Dear Hunter


You can come up raisin’ hell, son
six-guns blazin’, pumpin’ lead
but you can’t knock down that barrel
pressin’ hard against your head

and there ain’t no use in cryin’
and it ain’t no use to quit
and the only lie’ll kill you
is the truth you can’t admit

so just play the cards you’re dealt, son
with whatever chips you got
you just draw a breath and draw a bead
step up and take your shot

it’s an old and cold blue marble -
when it rolls around again
drop a live one
in the chamber,
give that cylinder
a spin

7 comments:

Julie said...

Hi, Joaquin. It's so nice to see you again (I'm catching up after a bit o' time on the road). How awesome it is to get to read your poems again.

I'm always impressed with your ironic titles. When I first saw this one, I swear, I literally saw the words "deer hunter" for a second. I love how you stop me in my tracks and make me do a double take.

"The only lie'll kill you is the truth you can't admit" is awesome. The cold blue marble and the spin of the cylinder in the end gives me chills. Very powerful ending. Excellent work, Joaquin!

Aniket Thakkar said...

Echo to Julie. "The only lie'll kill you is the truth you can't admit" is a million-dollar line! (If only I had a million dollar to give you.)

If I hadn't known better, I'd have guessed Clint Eastwood or Quetin Tarantino wrote this poem.

Karen said...

Sorry I'm just getting around. Summer somehow is busier than it should be!
Since Julie and Aniket have pointed out the best line and the great title, let me just mention once again the voice you create. Each of your poems has a speaker's clear voice, and I can see the speaker of this one squinting up one eye while he says those last lines. Ani was right - shades of Clint Eastwood here.

This one has me wondering at the inspiration.

S.L. Corsua said...

Ditto to the previous comment-ers. The last two lines in the second stanza should be made into a bumper sticker and pasted on some car's behind so drivers (who get to read it) have a moment of enlightenment while waiting for the light to change (hey, the idiom fits, too). As for the voice, I could hear Nick Nolte reading this piece (probably because I saw "Tropic Thunder" on cable a few days ago. Nick got real old. Anyway, the raspy voice is dead on).

p.s.
The word for "word verification" (indicated below while I'm typing this comment) is "prose." How cool is that? Chuckles.

Jannie Funster said...

Yikes, that last line got to me, Joaquin.

Could the cld ld blue marble be the world? Ah, very clever on that. It takes another spin.

I also read the BP one -- stunning. You always have such a unique way of looking at things.

Anonymous said...

wonderful, the line "the only lie'll that will kill you is the one you can't admit" -- it is already Thursday.. will be waiting for your new post.....blessings...bkm

joaquin carvel said...

julie - thank you! hope you had a good time out there. i used to not think much about titles, but now they're something else to use - another tool in the box, i guess.

aniket - what would i do with a million dollars? thank you, though. actually, i'd give half of it to hear clint read this one (with a seething, dirty harry delivery.)

karen - i know what you mean. i guess some lucky people are on vacation, i just don't know them. anyway, thank you. as for inspiration - it took a dark turn on me and isn't the poem i started to write, but i guess that's ok. sometimes the poem knows itself better than i do.

s.l. - good to see you! if i sold that bumper sticker through cafepress would you buy one? just kidding. thank you, for your comment and for hearing nick nolte - for some reason i always think of him as the cop in "48 hours" - he's always had a great voice.

jannie - yep, that's what i was thinkin'. thank you, as always - i'll be by for a dose of funsterment soon.

bkm - thank you - and blessings back.