Art of Writing League, Season 4
Ongoing, currently 9-2
Week 1: Abstract Image Challenge
Topic:
Posted on Oct. 3, 2014
Result: Beat Frank 7-0
The smell of fresh blood spilled through the regeneration mill.
It was December, and the steam rose off the atria grills,
where another batch, cut and wrapped, was sent to market.
It was December, season of giving. What better than pretested hearts?
Eight new ones a day every day produced and stowed
in the only factory in the world capable of fusal growth.
There were toes and eyes, grown behind the lungs and spleens,
but the hearts were the deli***ies. Frozen dry, trussed and squeezed.
Until the noisy demand hit its functional peak.
Viral marketing: "Get a new heart and overcome your disease!
Only seven million cubits and thirty-four Earth coins if you buy now;
just swipe your thumbprint on this hologram screen before supply's out!"
Martin Graves was a junior mechanic at the mill, repairing drones
that rarely froze but sometimes needed reboots or battery clones.
He'd spent eleven years of training at Gates Academy,
passed rigid assessments, visited lectures and gave with great veracity
a thesis dissertation based on alchemy's modern appliance.
His teacher said it was dated yet found it quite honest, unbiased.
That gave Martin the path to this organic mechanical field,
where he marched to the head of his class and stood out for his pedantic zeal.
It was December, three hundred and fifty-two hearts to be shipped,
a task carried out by seven drones in the mill and two on the cargo lift,
all working in unison over the next twenty-one hours and nine minutes.
Martin tugged on his blue shirt collar and readjusted one time widget,
then sent the first of the drones back out onto the factory floor.
One at a time, he pulled them aside just long enough to recalibrate cores.
When three hundred and fifty-two hearts arrived at Booker's Children's Hospital,
Chief Doctor Gregory Regus knew a mistake had been made, yet, "That's impossible!
Drones act only on programming," he said, so he took it as a gift from God.
Besides the hearts could only last for a few more hours outside of a living body.
There were four hundred and thirty-one children at Booker's in need, and yet
because they couldn't afford the regenerate hearts, they'd been kept on machines instead.
One of the lucky recipients was a freckled boy, twelve years in age.
With his lifelong heart murmur fixed, no one smiled brighter than Steven Graves.
As for Martin, when the drones returned and were debugged in manual audits,
the junior mechanic was found guilty of treason, theft and damaging losses.
They televised the execution. The injection spared Martin his torment.
And afterward, they moved his body to the mill to harvest his organs.
Week 2: Philosophic Quote Challenge
Topic: "With a bit of luck, his life was ruined forever."
Posted Oct. 18, 2014
Result: Beat dead man 5-0
Sunday, 1:21 a.m.
Chips scattered when Frankie flipped the fucking table,
"River-rat, cheating, pencil-dick motherfucker, I'll take you!"
He drunkenly ambled over to the bar, lunging for handles,
knocked a salt-shaker over, then shattered the bottle while cutting his hand, too.
Josh grabbed the cash and took off. In over his head, sober and yet
ready to take shots as he essentially stole what was his.
Climbed the basement steps, through the Italian restaurant, copius sweat
pouring as he tripped over the black cat patrolling for pests.
Stepped through the door a second before Frankie came puffing out orders,
so the bouncer went chasing down Broad with Josh cutting the corner.
That put him on 13th Street, and he dashed down to the bend,
doing the math out in his head: seven men, with a mass bounty for death.
Frankie's pride was too great to let this kid cash out with his bread,
so as he hit an alley, Josh knew he'd best fast bounce like a check.
Tuesday, 9:54 p.m.
The Glock echoed with treble as Josh took the steps up a level.
Escalating — Mo and Kris in hot pursuit with a debt still unsettled.
He ducked under the ladder on the fire escape, into an open apartment.
Old lady shrieked, but he punched her unconscious
with a right hook he learned from his uncle who boxes.
Josh is gasping for breath, but Mo and Kris are the savagest yet.
He'd already aced four thugs. That left three more hell-bent on having his head.
But our hero's out of bullets and now he's bursting through another door,
cursing as he hits the floor, crawling down into the corridor.
Ducking under the sink. Their shots shatter the mirror but they haven't seen him.
He grabs a shard, hides behind the shower curtain, listens and leans in.
So when Mo checks the bathroom, Josh grabs and drops him down with a slit.
Mo's body filled with shells while he fires a round into Kris.
Josh heaves the fat carcass off him and walks right out the front door,
drops a wad of 20s for the Arab tenant who just got back from the store.
Friday, 11:11 a.m.
Frankie's been stalking. His men downed, he's masked and he's armed and
he's ready to take this work into his own hands. Grabbing a cartridge,
he cocks. Tracking where Josh is for three days, out in the countryside.
Homie thought he'd be safe but, displaced, there's nowhere else to hide.
Frankie's calling his name. "Jah-osh." Two syllables. Grizzled like Tom Waits.
Slinks through the kitchen at slob pace, nothing but a few dishes, a hot plate.
He's listening for breathing. Knows Josh is inside. Must've hid in a enclave,
so he's checking the closets and wrecking the cottage but can't find this bitch or his locked safe.
Then out in the window, sees Josh running out to his Cadillac.
Fires a shot but misses. "You stole enough, motherfucker! GET BACK WITH THAT!"
Frankie's running and shooting. Doesn't see as he jumps the hedge, focused,
the rabbit that, in its own habitat, trips up Frankie and leaves his leg broken.
As Josh speeds away in the Caddie, his eye twitches, caught by one of his lashes.
And while clearing his vision, he drives head-on into traffic.
Week 3: Kanye West Quote Challenge
Topic: "I refuse to accept other people's ideas of happiness for me. As if there's a 'one size fits all' standard for happiness."
Posted on Oct. 18, 2014
Result: Beat NYCSPITZ 4-2 in a contender match
White rice at the start. It's softer, absorbent,
for when they don't drain the beans, which is always annoying.
Half pork, half steak — I'd get double but can't often afford it —
plus they give extra when you smile to impart your enjoyment.
Picante y maize, en español to command some respect
from that old Mexican lady who rolls with the hands of a vet.
Gracias. Grab my basket, plus some cash or a debit,
then sit down at a table, quickly unwrapping my heaven.
Now maybe it's hard to relate, maybe it's small or ornate,
but I find achievement in burritos that's not all in the taste.
We've all got callings to chase that might not fall into place,
but goals provide a road to stride beyond the walls of our gaze.
With open eyes, I tend to take a path less rugged and dark,
because one stumble shouldn't scuff and leave you bloodied and scarred.
But maybe it should. Maybe the highs feel better with lows.
Things can only get worse from here, every pessimist knows.
Yet, pushing back, I look for happiness wherever I go,
even if it means a crooked smile or irreverent pose.
The ennui serves as perfume in our dressiest clothes,
so raise your glasses, play the actors as we set for the toast.
Amid irrelevant folk, we wear intelligence cloaks,
and slicken lies as quick disguises for our mental repose.
The talk is cheap. Same with the drinks. Both are cloyingly sweet.
"Hi, how 'bout that weather?" All while avoiding his reach.
So pass a card, pass the salt, pass the time best you can.
And maybe try not to smile in saying good-bye to your friends.
There are places I remember all my life, that'd I'd rather forget.
But Yoko broke up the band, so I'm left to imagine the end.
Try not to dwell on the past, yet the passive regrets
build and build and build until I'm clasping my chest.
I'm an antisocial, surrounded by people trying to help,
so I smile, appease their egos then confide in myself.
Actualization's a solitary task by definition,
I've got my work, got my writing, got my passions, ambitions.
I prefer my private life, so rather than exposing my ego,
it's self-contained, in perfect balance, like that Chipotle burrito.
Week 4: Gothic Emo Picture Challenge
Topic:
Posted on Oct. 25, 2014
Result: Beat CopyPat 6-3 in the season's first championship match
Katie wore her daisy dress, afternoon sun bronzing her skin.
"Stop burning those damn ants," she scolded Tom with a grin.
She never could say no to her brother and his tangled mop of hair.
Three years younger, not a care. With a shrug, he hopped the stairs.
"I heard you got a date." Big grin. Katie blushed and cupped her eyes.
"It's not a date. It's a group thing. Kim, me, a couple guys.
We're just going to the movies." Chaste, she tugged her side
to make sure that daisy dress covered her thighs.
"Come back inside."
Katie had taken care of her brother ever since their mother died.
Dad drowned himself in work and liquor. Paid the bills and punched his time
and left his sixteen-year-old daughter to raise his son, a fraying home.
But at least Tom finally was old enough to stay alone.
"I'll take my phone."
They skipped the movies — Rob's call, since he had drove —
and ended up on a scenic route to a scenic lake with scenic hopes.
Rob and Kim took backseat, leaving Katie and Greg to stroll.
He had snagged a blanket. She mentioned her legs were cold.
They found a soft spot of grass to examine spacial depths,
as Greg connected constellations on Katie's naked chest.
"Don't stain my dress."
Greg felt a slap. Still groggy, a flashlight blinded at first,
but he quickly realized he was gagged and tied to a birch.
That's when he saw her: Katie was strung up in spread-eagle position,
with each limb tied to a different tree, each limb feebly twisting.
That mop of hair. He'd seen it before. That young teen at the door.
Katie's brother. Tim ... Todd ... Tom? Tom, who was now reaching for cord.
He tied up Kim and Rob on separate trees facing the center.
And while Katie flailed with a temper, Tom was silent, patient as ever.
He flicked a lantern. Shadows. Silhouettes across the night.
He ungagged his sister, releasing her caustic cries.
"But Tommy, why?"
Thomas Pickering raped Katherine that night at Centennial Lake.
Afterward, he killed Kimberly Jones, Robert French and Gregory Pace.
Thomas then slit his own throat, forcing his sister to watch,
while she cried for help that never came and helplessly bit at the knots.
No one ever found her body, only a daisy dress survived at the site,
but they say Katherine Pickering's screams still echo on the most quiet of nights.
Week 5: Classic Rock Song Challenge
Topic: "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by The Beatles
Posted on Oct. 31, 2014
Result: Beat Witty 7-6 in the championship match
Shaggy-haired sons of bitches. Iconic iconoclasts.
Dystopic in sonic blasts, with pop logic grasped.
Welcome to 1963. Welcome to 1970.
Welcome to white, weed, ecstasy.
One day in the life of let it be.
George Harrison's guitar blisters its cries,
off the living reprise of a rhythm in time.
Some form of misgiving in that instant defined
the concept of short-term existence,
because though the candle burned quickest,
the summer of love flickers still, living in minds.
They evolved with the era. Then with it, they died.
Week 6: Short-Verse Challenge
Topic: The Time Is Now
Posted on Nov. 8, 2014
Result: Beat Mr. J 6-0 in a championship match
And as the sleek blue rocket descended upon,
and as the geese and ducks emptied the pond,
and as the Empire City went distraught in its pleas,
something brought you to me.
New York under attack. The carousel in Central Park,
where we spent those nights, those tempting larks,
swirling in the fountains, testing dark. Restless hearts.
Now. Under the empty arch. Pigeon abandonment issues.
A few vandals, spraying their names as one last canvas is scribbled.
Police on alert. Walking the blocks amid the calm of the shock.
No one with nowhere to go in no time till the bomb hits its spot.
But us. You chase me to the edge of the creek,
sinking your toes in one at a time in a sensuous tease,
and, with enviable ease, you flip your hair back, exposing the skies,
and you grin. A wide grin. One that extends to the glow of your eyes.
Week 7: Christopher Nolan Quote Challenge
Topic: "I have to believe in a world outside my own mind. I have to believe that my actions still have meaning, even if I can't remember them. I have to believe that when my eyes are closed, the world's still there. Do I believe the world's still there? Is it still out there? Yeah. We all need mirrors to remind ourselves who we are. I'm no different." — Leonard Shelby in Memento
Posted on Nov. 15, 2014
Result: Beat CopyPat 8-0 in the championship match
The arrogance soothes. Reflexive action, parroting gloom.
The usual clichés spill over into cynical, nefarious moods.
It's all revisionist. Counting seconds until hope shatters,
picking up the pieces with a crooked wire coat-hanger.
You've got that look again. The roll of the eyes
remotely controlling your latest disguise with the loneliest sighs.
It's getting cold. November. With a sickly pale blue cloaking the skies
that kind of reflects your attitude toward most other people.
We're smoking outside.
The Zippo glows in the gloaming, defining
the silhouette of you in the same place you always would hide.
Disposable lies told to a disposable crowd.
Eyes to the ground, shifty. Preferring when no one's around.
It's easier this way. Immersed in minutiae, evoking distortion.
Most people try not to leave themselves open to torment,
but you, your masochism has deep roots and trimmed stems,
so when you drowned your sorrows, they regrew with additional heads.
I'm speaking to you. All twitchy mannerisms with none of the etiquette
and a habit of talking out of the side of your mouth with stuttering emphasis.
We could have been somebody, but you couldn't stomach the sedatives.
Popped a Molly. You're sweating. Nervously searching the premises
for exits that don't exist. The tourniquet bends and twists,
but you're better off hung out to dry than immersed as a pessimist.
And that's the problem. Hitting pause, hoping but not assuming
that the world revolves around you because you're the only one not moving.
And there it is. The opposite of a pro is a con. Yes, it's true,
yet the opposite of progress is you.
It's seeming pointless. All of it. Pretending you're anointed
but never quite ending on a point, unsettled and disjointed
when everything would be better if you just shut up and enjoyed it
and embraced the fact that death is just a coin-flip.
Instead, you've settled for this narcissistic avatar
where you hardly can control your darkest passengers.
And though your vanity exposes your own dysfunction clearer,
maybe it's time you get away from that motherfucking mirror.
Week 8: Landscape Challenge
Topic:
Posted on Nov. 27, 2014
Result: Lost to dead man 6-1
The above screen capture is from a video game:
Uncharted 3, a third-person shooter with remarkable visual grace
that explores the Middle East through the usual, limited frame
of a white man (from London), with no indigenous strains.
And that's the problem. America with three capital K's
has come full-force in every facet today.
We've got Michael Brown putting his hands up for a party in the USA,
while protesters can barely see through the haze.
And that's the problem. Gamer-gate, a subculture exposed
as a bunch of misogynist vultures and drones
keeping their membership closed
to anyone with a different perspective. Rather than changing their tone
they'd rather plug their ears and continue to victimize those
who dare speak out against a system that's broke.
White male heroes missing the joke
of their own frail egos and limited scope.
And that's the problem. Another depiction of oil fields as battlefields.
The War on Terror really captured mass appeal, a tragic heel,
turning brown men into villains. Turning Islam into the enemy.
Turning our shoulders to an oppressed people because they seem to let it be.
We're unwilling to consider the freedoms of women draped in cloth,
and to all those with no voice, we'll tell them, "Sheik it off."
And that's the problem.
Are we reflecting our follies?
Too many think-pieces, not enough thinkers can enter and lobby
for change that would temper our hobbies
to the point that they'd better society.
But see, we've given up on art as anything more than callous enjoyment
so any societal play gets violently flayed on grounds of avoidance.
Video games are built to escape everyday malaise and bullies on pulpits.
A place where even a white man can turn into the hulk and scurry through bullets.
And their heads are down.
It's not their problem if they can't see it.
so they're better off in their trance, seeking
enlightenment through Easter egg advanced secrets.
And that's the problem. We're all lost in the woods of our own insecurities,
so we bury our fears in digital worlds and lack the hope for a perfect peace.
Created by white men, for white men, with white male protagonists,
these video games get one thing right:
We're all murderous savages.
Week 9: Author Quote Challenge
Topic: "All things truly wicked start from innocence." — Ernest Hemingway
Posted on Dec. 6, 2014
Result: Lost to Pent uP 4-2
Immaculata mythology. The Virgin Mary bleeding for sins,
believing within that she was flawless, conceiving with Him.
No reason to give in as the choir speaks in a hymn
of guilt-trip anachronistically deviant demons and imps.
You're nodding. Jesus a kid. Or better yet, weak in the limbs,
he hangs from a cross with perfect countenance, releasing our sins.
Now you can pretend the scripture says what they're preaching, but then
you'd be turning a blind eye toward the whole meaning of it.
I'm the shadow streaking across the darkest corners of society.
Disorderly and rioting, I won't be ignored or forced to hide again.
I'm here. Refusing a seat in the sycophant symphony hall,
which makes me infinitely better than you sickening wimps in your shawls.
I don't believe in God. I don't believe in you. I don't believe in John Lennon.
I don't believe in a soft heaven with blue skies and our lost brethren.
I do believe in me. Me is the only thing I can prove,
and if I can prove anything, I exist. It's the simplest rule.
Ego. The prism of fools. Mine diminished in youth.
Through Heraclitus and Hoffer, developed discriminant tools
that serve now as a rubric for unlimited use
of the logical, crystallized truth that no god could have given to you.
"God is dead." Nietzsche had it half-right.
The literal truth is that gods aren't dead; they never existed with any physical roots.
And the burden shall be on the prosecution. This is the view:
God does not exist unless someone can bring us some proof.
Yet there's a counterpoint, an editorial rebuttal re-framing the facts.
Take away their false idols and see how the laymen react.
Atheism opened as a patient strain of thought and counter-philosophy
but without the theocracy, there's no restraint or plot.
We're godless, right? That's the goal of restless Sodomites
who often find a reason to take out their internal misgivings on honest, kind
Jesus-fearing folks who are just fine to walk with blinds
and not worry about some greater truth that simply clogs the mind.
See, religions (all of them, thank you) set guide-paths for the people,
and while you search for meaning in life, many find that under steeple.
Under corruption. The church was built on a series of lies,
a tyranny-tied power structure cleverly yet clearly disguised.
Take souls and collection plates from the hypnotized masses,
and place the sinners' names on a fictional blacklist.
Then they ask what began all the backlash,
with altar boys sacrificed by the most privileged Catholics.
And when the intellects speak, their ears fill up with wax and
their holy redeemer seems to visit the bathroom.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
We're all on it. Shook with vengeance, crooks descending.
There's little left. So we might as well try to set a standard
even if we don't tie it to a pious Christian handbook.
So Mary was a whore? So God might not even exist?
The atheist perspective fails to right its grievances.
But there's a power to being correct, a power that's seeded with knowledge,
and without it, we'll continue to have our freedom admonished.
Yet here and now, the wicked men sit, believing they're honest.
Week 10: Nas Song Challenge
Topic: "Hold Down the Block"
Posted on Dec. 13, 2014
Result: Won via Soulstice no-show
"Come on, Simmons, hold your fucking block!"
Coach's whistle pierces. Sweat streams down Jason's cheeks.
Head down, ass up until the snap and straightened knees.
He's made his peace with the taped fingers and lingering pains,
but betrays his weak past with deep gasps and physical strains.
He's still jiggling weight from his days as a fat kid
with no place in the game.
He's never facing that way again.
Determined to find meaning through something more
than cheesecake and potato skins.
But hunger pangs hit him like a linebacker,
so he grinds faster, setting the blocks, steady and locked.
As he steps into spot, ducking down, he starts seeing time backwards.
"Hold your damn block, Simmons!"
They're running behind him again on the right side.
Strong side. Jason's side. Carving holes with tight strides,
he buckles another defender to open a gap for the back,
who dashes through fast. Touchdown. But at practice it lacks
the glory of six and a rest. Coach sticks out his chest,
"Simmons, you weren't on the A-Gap! You were listening, yes?"
"But we scored?!" And Jason recalls meeting Coach in physical ed.
A chubby dork showing surprise strength with weights in limited sets.
The roster spot. The letterman jacket.
From oft-forgot to friends with the masses.
"What the hell are you doing, Simmons? Hold down your block!"
Jason's pressing. Feels his heart beating with the same force
of that defensive tackle. Shedding shackles, he maintains course
and keeps the pocket protected. All the while, he's not stopping for breath yet,
determined to make good on his honest regrets and nodding his head, "Yes,"
as Coach barks another order while Jason's coughing up phlegm.
The puke can's on the sideline, but he's not leaving the field.
Hobbled and wrecked, his back in his stance, feeble but healed
as another snap count fades out. And then he fades out.
And Jason falls to the turf face down.
Week 11: Short-Verse Philosopher Challenge
Topic: "Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy." — Sigmund Freud
Posted on Jan. 4, 2015
Result: Beat Arid 6-0
Any decent soothsayer comes with a cloud of smoke.
Ask yourself: The torn seams and tattered edges around the cloak
don't signify the better half of life. Stepping past the right.
He ambles, deaf and mad and white — as a ghost, cast in light.
There's attraction. There's ego brimming. Ego overflowing.
Speeches, lectures, cheap invectives seen through broken focus
bound by deeply coded sweeping shoulders, open coldness.
Here is the third eye of Shiva. Here is true total hypnosis.
Now keep your mind tuned sharply, my dear. It gets harder to hear.
Recline on the couch and reach back to the start of your fears.
Or don't. Pardon my queries, dark and inferior.
The process breaks upon despondence. The stark interior
of this room is meant to conjure something that probably wasn't there before
and probably won't be there again and probably requires care, remorse
or something you won't get here. So tell me your dreams, son.
Settle the screams. Sell me the scenes. Peddle your needs.
Run.
Week 12: Star Trek Challenge
Topic: Shadows and Symbols
Posted on March 11, 2015
Result: Won via Pent uP no-show in championship
One small step for man provoked the symbol,
a hope, a stencil for a sketching of tomorrow.
Evoking hereto, a greater ambition for man.
Limitless scans of the universe with visits to plan.
We've pictured it because we've been to it,
re-living our past with every telescoping view.
We exist, we use this knowledge to spin through
the future and past and scatterbrain wisdom.
But some keep questioning this fulfillment of destiny.
They're staring at the shadows, unsure we really know anything.
Round 1: Talking Heads Challenge
Bye as No. 1 seed
Playoffs Round 2: Black power leaders' quotes Challenge
Topic: "Everybody changes, not just me." — Eldridge Cleaver
Posted on April 8, 2015
Result: Beat Zen 5-4
Twelve Oaks Recovery Center, Mobile, Alabama.
Day 8.
Roommate again. Had been a week.
Johnny stepped away. Spinning head. Spinning deep
back into the litmus pleas. The rhythm pleas.
He begged for mercy. They gave him ibuprofen.
But Johnny’s gone now, leaving behind the silence broken.
I never saw them wash his sheets before Greg walked in, weak.
First-timer. Lost and bleak.
He still chews his nails.
He still shakes a bit. Shakes the bed. Tosses, creaks.
It’s OK. It’s been an awful week for my own awful sleep.
Day 13.
Therapy days are the worst. Explaining our thirsts
to some sycophant who entered this field,
without ever experiencing the strain of the urge.
I’m getting better. They said I could be out of here by May or, at worst
hopefully by the start of summer.
You loved the summer.
Didn’t you? Sundays at the church, you in your favorite skirt,
me in your favorite blazer.
The only days we never would cover our faces with makeup.
Day 29.
I haven’t written. I know.
Regressing, tracing my bad steps, refusing their wrongs.
I’m getting brutal to calm, they said it in passing.
Who are they? Not you.
Fuck. The devils are dancing.
Not you. I fucking can’t … I can’t.
Even.
It’s odd. I’m pressing them on. They’re never remanding.
Motherfuckers don’t know how to be angry these days.
Day 32.
I just wanted to tell you I love you.
Day 37.
We went outside. Eighty-four and not a cloud in the sky.
They say fresh air can open our lungs, open our minds.
But I’m drowning inside.
I need to escape. Houses of lies.
Lies I’ve never told. But I’m down with denial.
Surround-sound music binges, through cordless headphones.
My sentence unfinished. Fragmented. Broken English
that’s what Anita the maid speaks when the guys are trying to flirt.
But I know she isn’t illiterate.
I smile, she grimaces.
I keep my quiet and limit my contact
out of respect.
To her, to you.
Forty ounce of regret.
Day 45.
I’m getting out.
I’ve been working my fears,
turning new pages
in the same book you authored.
A better me, certain and clear.
Earnestly here. Focused.
But I don’t know.
You’ve read these thoughts for long enough
to better grasp the entire world inside my tiny mind
than any trained shrink who tries to climb inside.
I’m getting out, though.
They set me up with a job, factory work,
down in Birmingham, as a packaging clerk.
For that I’m grateful.
It used to be that release seemed painful.
Day 1.
We do this again.
You’ve sent me here,
by never being there,
by never being.
Elusive and yet,
something never stupid.
We couldn’t be because you changed, drifted, sneered.
We both decomposed.
You disappeared.
Round 3: Street Photography Challenge
Topic:
Posted on April 22, 2015
Result: Lost to NYCSPITZ 5-2
liding out of a crimson teardrop, he entered.
Trying to breathe, dissenting from pent up phlegm.
He never meant to be here,
placed down into an ample bosom.
Patted on the backside until, at last, gasps were patterns, softened
in the cries of the infirmary. The first face he saw
was a nurse named Marjorie. Proclaimed him tall.
Measured his feet. Then walked out into the waiting hall.
Mother was second. She laid upon her death bed.
Nineteen-forty-seven, clutching her beaded necklace
to open the doors of heaven.
Believing she had met her maker,
he left the room to cry and set the table.
Father was a good man. He taught him how to tie a fish net
and how to drive the rig. Baseball, rye and wrist strength
and firm handshakes and how to roll a cigarette tight.
The son was 13, the daughter 9. The father left at midnight.
His sister was beautiful. Donna, she danced and smiled.
She had a child. She quickly matured and passed her wiles
off as a way to a faster path to wherever she wanted to go.
So she danced off into the sunset in a drug overdose.
The third pew from the front, right side. Gloria always sat,
so one day, he slid a row ahead of her and boldly sang.
His creaking baritone caught her ear.
He’d hoped she’d laugh.
The next week, he joined the same pew to hold her hand.
A gentle touch.
She raised two kids. He paid the bills. She made his lunch.
He grayed and filled. She stayed untouched, never looking less
than the perfect angel, even in the cancer’s grasps.
He sang to her in the hospital. She gasped a laugh.
The overachiever. He taught Tommy how to tie a fish net,
but Tommy quickly turned to bigger prey.
He’d lie and get sent to his room, but didn’t stay.
He’d sneak out the window or back into the basement to sit and play
video games. Ones he designed himself.
And the old man couldn’t figure Tommy out but tried to help.
They sent him off to school. West Coast, with just a tie and belt.
He used to visit in Novembers,
now sends a card on Christmas if he even remembers.
Daddy’s little girl. Jessica sort of reminded him of Donna,
so he protected her at every step and quickly coddled
and looked at every boy with a twitch that followed
quickly behind a firm handshake. It kept Jess embarrassed.
Pleading to be allowed to do the things her older brother did,
to be like the other kids
to be like her mother.
Cancer’s like that, though. A hereditary curse.
Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
A father stepping from the hearse.
And now he sits,
tearing off pieces of bread to feed the ground.
Knowing the pigeons won’t stick around.