Ode to a Drone by Amit Majmudar

Ode to a Drone

by Amit Majmudar

Hell-raiser, razor-feathered

risers, windhover over

Peshawar,

power's

joystick-blithe

thousand-mile scythe,

proxy executioner's

proxy ax

pinged by a proxy server,

winged victory,

pilot cipher

unburdened by aught

but fuel and bombs,

fool of God, savage

idiot savant

sucking your benumbed

trigger-finger

gamer's thumb

Today's blog poem was first published in the book, Dothead, published in 2016 by Knopf Doubleday. You can also read it again here.

The first thing that stands out in this poem is the word play, and it is gorgeous. Majmudar's clever language use in this poem clashes with the topic, which causes us to consider that topic--war drones--as even more surreal than we might ordinarily.

Just the first stanza gives us, in just 6 words (3 compounds): raiser/razor/risers and hover/over/awar (Peshawar is a Pakistani city). The sounds and the pace continue for five more stanzas, which include the end rhyme of blithe and scythe (again, forcing together two things that do not generally mesh in any way) and the repetition of proxy in stanza 3 (which drives home how literally in-human war drones are).

Stanza 4 uses an unusual word: aught. It is unusual in that it is, as it is used here, archaic and not commonly used. But it fits here in part due to another reason for it being unusual--it means both nothing and everything. And that is brilliant here. Those old-fashioned (archaic) pilots, who actually had to be physically present as they dropped bombs, had to see the result (at least the explosion)--they are fools, idiots, while also being savants because they needed actual skill. This poem luxuriates in contradictions!

The last stanza sums up those pilots of the past, self-soothing their trigger fingers. But it ends back on the people manuevering the drones by comparing those hands that actually touched a trigger to the thumbs of gamers/drone operators. Majmadur does not end the poem with--it's like war is a game anymore, and all these guys have to do is play with a joy stick to kill people as if they are at home playing a game on their computer. But he does, because that is what that last line--two words--says.

This is a devastating poem and I am awed by the word play and how successful it is here, given the horrifying subject matter. You can learn more about the poet on his website; click here for that. He's an Ohioan! Yea! (I went to college in Ohio and will always hold it, and its citizens, close to my heart.)

*Last Wednesday, I posted a poem by Robert Pinsky and said I would post my other favorite poem by him, "Shirt," soon. Well, ode to my disorganization--I have already done so! I posted "Shirt" on September 24, 2023; click here to read it there.