Regret Poem by Roy Blokker

When I was a kid Mr. Black
Was the perfect name
For a bad guy.
The Fifties saw things in clear
dichotomies,
Black and white, yin and yang,
peace brother
Still on the horizon,
"Social awareness"
Not in Webster's Unabridged.
The Good Guys were the Peppers,
August and Charles
(Both sergeants in the war, of course,
The Civil War) .
There were few words spoken.
These men let their guns
Be their eloquence.

The Damsel in Distress
Came from a medieval set,
In a flowing silver gown
To match her skin,
And through she was old as the hills
She had a great rack
And being the only girl in town
She was more popular
Than she wanted to be.
She was a lady
In love,
Nonspecifically for plot's sake.
And when Mr. Black kidnapped her
The knights who came to rescue her
Packed two gun rigs and Winchesters,
A merry band of brothers
Ready to pepper the bad guys
And save the girl.

Sometimes the battle raged and raged
And reinforcements came like
cavalry
With Rusty and Rinty and Sgt Masters
And maybe Robert E. Lee, sword raised,
And cannon and Indians
And full blown war.
Time lines did not exist
When pirate ships flipped over
To make defensive positions
And tanks trod up the Persian carpet roads
To take their part in true unbiased
Equality
Of battle and death.
Last man standing
Gets the girl.

Knights galloped in at times,
Learning the vital lesson first hand
That you can't block a bullet.
But no dragons, alas
(I didn't believe in them, then) .
An occasional T-Rex might
Wander onto the battlefield,
Hard to stop harder to kill,
Prehistoric misunderstood living
tank.
I was precocious.
Michael Crichton learned
from me.

Then dinner called.
The toys went back to wait
(A soldier's job;
I wonder what they talked about
Inside that massive chest)
For the next amazingly similar
plotline.

My parents threw them all away,
Chest included,
While I was at college
And my deepest regret
Is that I, having never grown
up,
Lost my toys so young.