They Call It Scrambling The Jets Poem by Doug Lane

The last poem I wrote
came to me
as I was driving
from the range
to the donut shop
so that I had to borrow
a pen
from the donut girl
to write it down
Not that it was any good,
mind you,
but how can I know
in advance.
My job
is merely
to set them down.

And this poem
came to me
as I was cutting up potatoes
and dropping them in a boiling pot.
And those potatoes
are still boiling
as I write this down.

So a poet
has something in common
with SAC bomber pilots
who sit and play pinochle
at Offutt Air Force Base,
waiting for news
of an attack
so they can
instantly scramble
their jets
to save the
nation
or annihilate the whole world.

Not that my poems will save
or annihilate
anything.
But I have to be ready.
Ready like firemen,
hanging out in the firehouse,
also playing pinochle,
or boiling potatoes,
or cleaning their gear,
waiting for news
of the next disaster,
so they can slide down
their brasspoles
and save a house, save a family,
from a raging fire.

Or poets have to be ready
like cops
also hanging out
in a donut shop,
not playing pinochle,
waiting to be summoned
to the site of a killing,
a mugging, a rape,
a burglary, an incident
of domestic violence,
a husband
in a wife beater t-shirt
beating his wife,
and when we cops
get there, both husband
and beaten wife
turn on us
with deadly force,
with kitchen knives
and firearms,
revenging themselves
on us
for breaking up their fun.

"We was gonna have sex
after the fight, " snarls the wife.
Me and my partner
are bleeding
and drag them both off
handcuffed and cussin',
to the station house.
Everybody's bleeding.

Not that this poem
I'm writing
will make you bleed
or cause you
to make me bleed.
Or force me
to handcuff you
and arrest you
and drag you off
to jail.
But anything's
possible.

And now,
if you'll excuse me,
I've got to go back
and check
my potatoes.