Month: April 2023

Not a Boxer

CHIME sounds. Other guy darts in and clocks him. Consciousness circles the
DRAIN. Blackness. 3 minutes later, or a day, he comes to.
WHOSE body is he in? Who could have so much pain?
BOXER decides then and there: he’s not a boxer.

First lesson

If I hadn’t been under my father’s THUMB
I’d never have known the complexity of CHESS.
It started when we stayed at a hothouse HOTEL –
I was given a dank green drink, like SYRUP.
When I surreptitiously stuck my THUMB
In the stubby smoke-shaded glass of SYRUP
It came out green, my father wondering later at CHESS
At the significance… Continue reading First lesson

Schachnovelle

THUMB inky, Zweig pauses from feverish writing about feverish
CHESS, tale of a man whose body slipped the Gestapo’s clutches, whose mind did not.
SYRUPy Fios de Ovos is brought to his table. The
HOTEL staff quietly fusses over Zweig. Perhaps the care of staff may yet ground an unquiet mind.

All this Sand

VERGE of sand, bordering on sand, looking out on sand.
CAMEL stands there with a camel smile,
PUTTY lips chewing away on a tuft of saltbush.
GRASS would be juicier, but grass is not to be had, here in all this sand.

Parking place

I parked my camel on the grass VERGE
while I went off to buy some PUTTY.
When I returned someone had pasted an irate sign on the CAMEL, handwritten, in large, red letters: Camels Are Not Permitted on the GRASS!