And so I read the first
of the Nine Stories by J.D.Salinger
in which a young soldier returning
from World War II shoots himself
in the head above the bed
and the afternoon siesta of his lovely
young wife who had waited for him
in those dry years when emancipation
grew more out of simple boredom
than it ever could on dissatisfaction
It is the economy of his language
as it is with economy of any language
in expressing the economies of life
that I like in J.D.Salinger
Imagine the rosy cheeks of America
in the post-war years
caned out of sheer rage by those
returning to these shores as if it’s
Eldorado missed by the Spaniards
four centuries earlier
few thousand air miles to the south
and seeing that optimism can grow like
mushrooms and mildew
Impotent in its glow to tell
stories of what they saw
they claimed the unalienable right of
young men after each war to keep
their pistols now as veterans
because they may need them
to blow out something one last time
for old times’ sake