Message to a Rocket Launcher

author's note:

Some say dreams are meaningless.

I say: maybe theirs are.  Not mine.


MESSAGE TO A ROCKET LAUNCHER

When I heard the man claim
he had slept quite well
after launching that long-range attack
I remembered a dream
I can’t forget:

in the scene
I squatted on a desert plain
and from my big bazooka
shot a ball of barb-wire
at an unknown enemy
somewhere over there

and felt quite pleased
a moment later, when
I spied a poof of dust
rising on the horizon.

But then I looked down
and found a wire strung
all the way from my trigger finger
to the distant point of impact.

In frantic desperation
I tried to untie the wire
but those barbs stung my hand--
without thinking, I ran

with that wire trailing after me--
delivering hot jolts of pain
to my finger, arm, body, brain.

Waking in a cold fever
I knew I needed
to understand that nightmare
and though I often miss the obvious
I soon realized its message:

when you try to get rid of the hurt you feel
by putting the hurt on somebody else
you’re connected to the pain
you’ve created for the other.
Thus
you actually hurt worse.

From this dream, we can see
I am still an angry child

but adult enough
to be honest with you now--
hoping

this dream message will awaken
at least one other rocket launcher
to a truth so obvious
it often goes unnoticed:
  when you choose the wrong way
  to deal with your pain
  you only worsen the wound.

Maybe then
having lost his blind innocence
that launcher may stop trying
to punish the other
and instead fight to heal
his wounded self
and in that way help heal
a world filled
with bazookas and barb-wire.

The Truth of the Dream: poetry ebook
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© 2022, Michael R. Patton