Convoy
We left Kuwait City early one April morning
Just as the infernal desert sun was dawning
Off for Baghdad and the unknown
We all tried to keep an upbeat tone
Armed but utterly unprepared
A feeling of fear was shared
A lengthy stop at the border
Convoy lost all sense of order
Spent the night on a Humvee hood
Desert chill was withstood
Images trapped in my brain
Who knows how many were slain
Charred hulls of Iraqi tanks
Barefoot children among their ranks
Poverty cannot describe what I witnessed
This was a place good fortune had missed
Desperate citizens asking for water and food
To our rifles our hands remained glued
We wilt in the oppressive desert heat
Fatigue grips us from our head to our feet
Finally, Baghdad presents itself in the distance
You see evidence of the Iraqis’ resistance
We snake through the shattered city, across the Tigris River
Your mind imagining what this strange land will deliver
“Convoy” was selected by Hai-Dang Phan as a finalist in the Distinguished Voices Poetry Contest
“Written in strict rhyming couplets in the disciplined voice of a soldier, “Convoy” attempts to give order to the chaos of war, an order threatened by the needless violence and human suffering the poem also bears reluctant witness to.” -Hai-Dang Phan, author of Reenactments
A veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Marc Marin earned his bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Northern Illinois University. He spent 12 years in the newspaper industry before moving into teaching in 2017. Marin teaches English at Cortland High School in Cortland, N.Y. and is pursuing his Master’s degree in English from SUNY-Cortland.