so last tuesday, we, the Veterans and our fearless Leader Leilani were preparing for the event – Returning Soldiers Speak, where Adam, Eric, myself, and Rick read, & Sue, Sayuri and Richshell came out in support of me.. and to see the event… and many liked my poem, and i may make a new recording of it and post it some time before the year is out… i want to anyway 

👹📌¿ & @ & ?📌 👹

so this week, with us was Hugh Martin, a published author of poetry!!! we did our timed writing, and our prompt was selected by Adam Cloys (author and publisher of “Reason” – currently on the Writers Workshop page under programs) so to his prompt i wrote!!! in a 18 minute timed writing (different than our 20 minute writings) 

Tuesday, November 12, 2013 @ 13:32:06

After I decided to enlist

👹📌¿ & @ & ?📌 👹

I don’t know if I decided at all

It was the fall of gravity

The taking of the mind from the poverty I straddled

Poverty that kept me from straddling the fairer of my kind

Like earthlings from the raw sense of what life is all about and at what time

👹📌¿ & @ & ?📌 👹

i don’t know if decided at all

or if bullies that I hated had to now wait in line

wait in line for that which was their turn

turn to learn the lessons of their atrocities

👹📌¿ & @ & ?📌 👹

I don’t know if I decided at all

In the fall of knowing that there is this great and glorious call

In a mind untamed but knowing that in democracy and its liberties lie the gains

Gain of the freedoms all have yet to be known

Still in a young nation – has so much room from where it has presently grown

And those still thrown under the bus – and shoved and taken down a notch or two

From the non notch that they were up in the first place

👹📌¿ & @ & ?📌 👹

My mind is gone threw

This contemplation of why it was that I decided to enlist

The minimum 3 year contract

And assurance of 97% that I would be the chef I dreamed of being

That I would cook for my Marines – and in crystal clear fields

They would be seeing

That nobody else was up to die but them

For when and if shit hit that fan

None to ask just where have U been

👹📌¿ & @ & ?📌 👹

So

👹📌¿ & @ & ?📌 👹

I don’t think I decided to enlist

Enlisted I did – in no hand of a draft

Enlisted I did – and too seen the shaft

This green weenie that oft was spoke about

A cook I was not – position oversight to my dream deferred

I too was a grunt, that infantry man, that first to be called

we’re the Marines man!!!

👹📌¿ & @ & ?📌 👹

Devil Dogs, Jar Heads, Leathernecks, Marines

In 2 eyeballs, just what the hell has been seen

In a war time stint – and no hint of the dreams of what one would be

The immediacy of what it is that one is in the present tense

just trying not to be killed

trying not to be killed

as if one had a choice in the matter

👹📌¿ & @ & ?📌 👹

and in non-war time

another dismissal phrase came to mind

just before – shit happens

were they a friend of mine, a friend of yours,

a brother or sister, a cousin, a son or a daughter

does it matter

war or peace

does it change the aforementioned reasons

are they reasons

is there a reason at all

for a time of war

how big or how small

👹📌¿ & @ & ?📌 👹

can U bring then a breath of hope

for why one decides to enlist

to go to college

to make a better opportunity to live

for who to live

to enable oneself the best of potential for their contributions to our world

can they, will they, will I contribute at all

if in that ditch did I fall, on that sand did I crawl, in those jungles did I fall, in that street did I fall

👹📌¿ & @ & ?📌 👹

is it democracy for all

that I decided to enlist

after I decided to enlist

was it in my mind in the shaped experiences – to stop the bullies

before

or after I decided to enlist

👹📌¿ & @ & ?📌 👹

did I change my mind

after I decided to enlist!

13:51:11

also, i have written several poems in the interim, and will post them sometime, there are also 100’s of poems i have written that have never been transcribed!!! i need help