Page 211 - What They Did to the Kid

What They Did to the Kid 199

I will. I will. Through clenched hands and teeth, I will my way
through this. If this is the way from the plateau, then I will that this
dark night clarifies my vocation. I will that it shall pass. And pass. And
pass. And pass. Mir Mir untha whull, hustha ferst uthum ul? I felt light.
Outside myself. Silly. Giddy. Dizzy. Spinning. Happy. Sad. Tangled
in life. Threaded. Nobody loves me. Me, not nailed big and strong to a
cross, but threaded. A child’s beads strung tightly on taut string. March.
The river melts and floods. Life is young, poised, free. Threaded. Young
goats rolling in long wet grass. Tearing up the mountainside, tumbling
down. Unthreaded. Laughing wind in trees, water and spray bubbling
near moss beds and skimming over shallow cool sand. Claustrophobic
shepherd trapped. Poised, balanced rock, ready to fall. Either way.
Either. Or. Confiscated. Not really poised at all. Unthreaded. Marbles
caught up in a leather pouch. Discontinuous bits of movie film. Fish in a
bowl. Time snowballs. To another time. I will. Life and time and what?
Responsibility. What the hell are you talking about? Fancy ramrods.
Through a small splintered crack streams a coveted wisp of promise. Bits
of songs. Typing ribbon eternally winding and rewinding itself. Paint
oozing from tube to palette. Delicious are tastes and smells of dream.
Picasso on the sidewalk. Existentialism on a picket fence. Not everyone
wears a melted watch. Haunchers along a stone wall. Whispers under
the droning harangue. Self-appointed Gantry. Yoo-hoo, Elmer! Fight-
ing in others what afraid to fight in himself. I’m not like other men.
Everybody sing. Vienna psycholo gist down for count of ten. Faith means
I don’t have to understand. Take it from the top! God said to Moses,
Beat me, daddy, eight to the bar.
Ohmarywecrowntheewithblossomstoday.
Sixteen millimeter. Queen of the Angels. The wreck of my happiness.
Queen of the May.
Every night, I pulled on my flannel pajamas.
Every morning, I woke up naked.

May 1, 1963
May Day, May Day

An evening rainstorm was approaching in a curtain across the Ohio
valley, sweeping across the winding river, the wild, deep, flooded

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
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