The Poetry, Essays and Personal Journals of Larry L. Dill
Three poems by Larry L. Dill
I’m out here in Appalachia tonight
alone, the rain beating on the roof of my cabin.
I’m reading about the Muslims in the Middle East.
Here in the mountains today, though, (here in America)
the local paper carried a story about a black
school girl finding a “nigger hunting license”
planted in her backpack.
I’ve been trying to understand why we
should hate the Muslims.
Hell! If we can terrorize our own children
In our own country,
What’s an Arab to us?
You know, Grace,
you’ve sung those
eloquent tunes,
playing out that historical rage
that runs through you like a river.
But hear me out.
Language is not love.
And try as we do
(you of course much better
than I)
we cannot solve
the mystery with words.
And that, more than
the injustice itself,
is the source of our
Madness.
Found in North Carolina in March, 2007
I’ve lost track of time.
Even of my notebooks.
The order, the system
Is out of control.
But not the flow itself.
The president speaks to the nation
In front of books on a shelf.
Don’t we all wish we had
It lined it up like that.
Aristotle, Shakespere and the Bible.
Sigmund Freud, Virginia Woolf.
I’m struggling here. Just to be here.
I could go out in the woods tonight
And freeze myself to death.
But I’m a boy scout, too.
I’ll survive.
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copyright 2007 by Larry L. Dill