Convoy<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n We left Kuwait City early one April morning<\/p>\n Just as the infernal desert sun was dawning<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Off for Baghdad and the unknown<\/p>\n We all tried to keep an upbeat tone<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Armed but utterly unprepared<\/p>\n A feeling of fear was shared<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A lengthy stop at the border<\/p>\n Convoy lost all sense of order<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Spent the night on a Humvee hood<\/p>\n Desert chill was withstood<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Images trapped in my brain<\/p>\n Who knows how many were slain<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Charred hulls of Iraqi tanks<\/p>\n Barefoot children among their ranks<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Poverty cannot describe what I witnessed<\/p>\n This was a place good fortune had missed<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Desperate citizens asking for water and food<\/p>\n To our rifles our hands remained glued<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We wilt in the oppressive desert heat<\/p>\n Fatigue grips us from our head to our feet<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Finally, Baghdad presents itself in the distance<\/p>\n You see evidence of the Iraqis\u2019 resistance<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We snake through the shattered city, across the Tigris River<\/p>\n Your mind imagining what this strange land will deliver<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Convoy” was selected by Hai-Dang Phan as a finalist in the Distinguished Voices Poetry Contest\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWritten 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.\u201d -Hai-Dang Phan, author of Reenactments<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n A veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Marc Marin<\/strong> earned his bachelor\u2019s 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\u2019s degree in English from SUNY-Cortland.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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