Grandpas House & From Iraq with Love [Two Poems]

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Author: Dennis Siluk

Article source: http://pbskids.org/. Used with author's permission.

Grandpa's House
[The ole Real House]

The house needed painting
Sun-blistered and flaking
Grandpa started to have us
Boys—Mike and I— start
Doing some scraping—

While he, pealed off the ole
Paint, and started painting…

Just a humble wooden house
With several rooms, but
Strong enough to keep the
Winds and winter snows out,
How he loved that ole house!...

An' his well-kept yard, which
Contained lilac bushes, and
Big shade treeswhere birds
And squirrels lived—season
To season, scattered on…

Branches—they looked like
Play things (back in the 50s)

#807 8/18/05

Note by the author: "We all grew up together I suppose you might say, my brother and I, mom and grandpa, a few aunts in the beginning, all living in an extended family environmentthat is how it felt anyhow. Although the house belonged to my grandfather, we all lived togethernow it all seems so long ago, and what pops out of my mind is: I never did take a liking to painting houses after painting his a few times."

From Iraq with Love

American's most often are
Certain of what they want
From the world—
In a large measure,
In charge:
Gold, machinery,
Symbols
It's what it's all
About…

Shaving
Showering
Outfitting
Medications
Cosmetics
It's what it's all
About…

Breakfast
Banquettes
TV's and couches
Adolescents
Engagement rings—
Thanksgiving's:
Blessings, gratitude
(no secrets here)
It's what it's all About…

Family
Snow and rain
North by a highway
Dirt and mud
Children
Classmates
Cookies
Just beautiful
Things—freedom
To say and be
That's the way it was meant
To be:

An' then,
Along came a bullet:
No mercy
Your dead!...
Nothing more said.

#806 8/16/05

Note by the author: "I am not for or against the war in Iraq, for the most partalthough I do believe America did do a great service for the world, and the Iraqi people by bringing down Saddam, a world demonic beast, from his throne, and perhaps it was worth the price, then and nowwe are all counting the price right this minute, are we not [?] But is it worth it to continue? A pale question at best, now facing everyone in the country. There are wiser men than I up in Washington D.C., figuring these things out, and surely we do not know everything of what is in the background. But being in a war, I do know this: we won the war, it should be over, and we are not responsible to rebuild their whole country at the cost of taxing the American citizen to death: financially, resources, and our youth wise. I do pray that President Bush will bring our boys home. Enough is enough."