Author Information
NIGHTMARE
Upon boarding the air plane in Dallas to Chicago
At eighty degrees I wearing a short sleeved shirt
Arriving at O’Hara thirty one degrees and snowing ----
My introduction to Navy boot camp and this new world
Was a nightmarish event for me, a young east Texas boy,
My naiveté hanging around my neck like an albatross.
The Navy was a wasteland for a young poet struggling,
Seeking his way through this desert, this wilderness,
Where thinking was not a trait well received by the brass,
Where instructions on conformity was posted everywhere
A horrendous maze of foolish unwritten conventions
Foreign to me a poor soul just trying to survive.
