Whirlwind Publishing

"I’ve had 20 years of pain” – George Wallace on the 20th anniversary of the attempt to assassinate him

 

A stone’s throw from Sun

A ball that doesn’t bounce

Suspended

Down there

In under space;

Home to humanity

And other life forms

Worth saving only

If we want

A repeat

Of this gathering

Millennia from now.

 

What we do here?

Why we be here

Navigating our way

Through discourse?

I say shell it

With our thunder.

 

Annihilation today.

Annihilation tomorrow.

Annihilation  forever.

 

So sayeth the god named George Wallace

Hands locked to the wheel of a chair

He was forced to operate                

Because every single deity asked

Refused.

 

When he arrived

In pantheon celestial stomping grounds

Old George immediately requested

Use of his legs again –

A request neither denied

Nor fulfilled.

 

The agreed upon rules specified

That two gods had to second and third the request

Before it could even be heard by the full pantheon.

In all the time, Old George’s chair has been gilded

With the artistry of celestial secretions

There never has been such

An agreement.

 

They can agree on the weather,

The actual age of earth,

The alignment of planets

Everything and anything

Except that

George Wallace should have legs.

 

 

 Over in the corner, Atlas groans

- The world revolving on his back without cease –

 As the last syllable in annihilation forever dissipates;

Knowing the gods

Will now wax eloquent

Into eternity

Turning language upside down

In the effort to not be the one

Who seconds

The god George Wallace.

juicy from night secretions

open like an o’keefe petal

i am stymied

blocked

from light of day

enjoyment

by the fact

that mentally

and emotionally

he falls far short

of what i need

but not what i want.

 

I could…skulk…with him

in the middle of the night;

alarm set for some early hour

disturbing earned slumber.

I could be subterfuge

personified

but I am too much

the daughter of my mothers:

one who loved a man until he died

(but who also told me if she had known

his impact beforehand

would never have got with him);

another who will never offer

even a facsimile of an apology

because to do so

would be like breaking omertà.

 

i am their daughter

but i am also mother

to the future.

i model womanhood

for my son.

 

so i walk the line

between sacrifice

and desire.