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Kenneth White

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Posted on Sunday, February 09, 2003 - 02:53 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

coward


I was a clueless high school senior
pressing my Prufrock spine
against a barbeque-scented chair
and concentrating on every short skirt
or pair of tight jeans wiggling past me
through nicotine clouds in a nocturnal lounge.
My Casanova buddies were doing the Electric Slide
with tipsy ghetto queens, eventually luring them
into slow drags and flippantly promising
an exciting one-way Voyage to Atlantis.
I was neither a lover nor a fighter
but merely a watcher, which can sometimes
be the worst among those categories.

Some people claim that crazy things occur
after midnight, but we were already bewitched
since 10 p.m. Three hours later
made hardly any difference.
I was worrying about how my mom
was going to swoop down on me
with a leather-belt vengeance
for ignoring my curfew again.
I stepped outside to the pay phone,
rehearsing believable excuses,
when I heard intoxicated tones
stirring a few feet away from me.
I turned around just in time
to watch a torn woman yelling
at her belching boyfriend
who was spitting up slurred insults.

My seared conscience whispered,
"This is none of my business,"
as I crept towards the front door
like an intimidated Levite
passing on the other side
of a wounded traveler.
He suddenly barked, "Shut up,"
reduced her to the status
of a female mongrel
and laid the thunderclap
of his trembling hand
against her tear-stained cheek.

A part of me wanted to look
both ways like Moses and bury
this wannabe Ike Turner
in the Southeast Texas sand
while another part of me knew
that I could not shake off
the impact of bullets torpedoing
from a possibly concealed 9mm.

Looking back on this adolescent episode,
I wonder who was the bigger coward:
either the boyfriend drunk with grapes of wrath
or me for tiptoeing back into festive shadows
silhouetting mirages of wall-to-wall grins?

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Chris Hayden

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Posted on Monday, February 10, 2003 - 10:23 am:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Some colorful images here, Kenneth.
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Greeneyedrican
First Time Poster
Username: Greeneyedrican

Post Number: 1
Registered: 09-2004

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Posted on Thursday, September 09, 2004 - 10:09 am:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I was worrying about how my mom
was going to swoop down on me
with a leather-belt vengeance


I dig your writing style...and this part had me laughing....so relatable

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