1 - Submarine Hate Poetry: An Introduction

I have a confession: I count number the days that I spent on board a United States Los Angeles Class Submarine as the most baleful existence I could imagine (that is until the United States invented Camp X-Ray, Abu Grahib, and the non-combatant classification, which I can only guess from stories, is a category only slightly below non-human, seeing how these guys seem to miss out on basic animal rights. I support free-range prisoners, foreign and domestic. Apparently we just can't have too many prisoners in this country. I believe US Government should practice free range to achieve a humane certification, to reduce feed costs, to improve the happiness and liveliness of their animals prisoners, to produce a higher-quality institutional product, and improve breeding-yield so that a new generation of higher quality prisoners would always be available, reducing the dependence on foreign nations for non-combatant raids).

Don't get me wrong, this experience prepared me to deal with many miserable situations and gave me a technical skill set that I confidently use on a day to day basis, and there is little that can compare with that vital training. This training has opened opportunities for me and I am thankful for that. This experience also gave me the opportunity to make myself a volunteer, experience something that people try to imagine, get to practice a clandestine lifestyle, disappear off the face of the earth for months at a time, face bill collectors when I got back home, and stand up for the country that I loved.

But on a truly spiritual and emotional level this existence was barren for me. I often searched philosophically for purpose and meaning in what I was doing, beyond the standard rational of deterrence. I wanted something more. I needed something more and continually came up empty. I believe that the problem became the arbitrary politics of the boat itself, circling in an area beyond my influence.

I penned a hate haiku. It was December 1996 I had been trapped in a submarine for 6 months and was steaming home, my ex-wife had started her affair (that she didn't know that I had known about for months just by the tone in her voice) and I was completely frustrated with being on this submarine and how it was dictating my life. I wrote a standard 5-7-5 haiku, seething with hate:

December

Ball peen hammer hits.
Teeth head south like winter geese.
Better than Christmas.

I'm not even sure if it was directed at anyone as much as a catharsis by imagining a violent action, finding a moment of insight and tagging it with a shocker. I don't know if that description makes sense, but that's how I thought of it. Anyway that horrible poem made me feel better by venting it on paper and I decided that I would explore the concept of "Hate Poetry" as it applied to my day to day experiences at that time.

When I look back at these I realized how unhinged they seem and actually that was the style I was trying to emulate. I firmly believe that you have to be a little unhinged to serve effectively on a submarine, not dangerously, but you have to have the ability to let little things slide and address big things immediately and effectively. In writing for my submarine audience I wanted to see how loose I could get.

I've made a decision to post a few on this blog. They typically are an attempt to capture an emotion during specific events or activities, and some break down into stream of conscientiousness writing and I hope they are not too much to read. "Enjoy" is not the proper introduction for these smoldering gems, so here they are. They are what they are.