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The house was not plumb and the wind knew it.
In winter, the drafts would break into
whistles and spook the old dog; who would
pace the linoleum in search of calm.
Sometimes, field mice would cozy between the
cinder blocks and joists and wait out
the storms, only to have the mutt paw their retreats
in protest.
Mostly, the shades would stay up to take in
the moon and stars, but with each cold snap
down they would come to hold the dying heat.
On snowy nights, the man and woman would retire
to the foam-fill by midnight to sleep below the
vinyl headboard with its chewing gum warts
or linger a little longer with the residue
of alcohol and the ashes of death.
By 1 am, the little boy would be alone with the glow
of the space heater in the downstairs kitchen and
the drum of ice pellets on the corrugated roof above.
In the dim, he would raise the shades and press
his face and fingers against the frosty pane.
He always liked the taste and feel of iciness.
Beyond its makeshift lens, a lone street
light would reveal tomorrow's fate.
By two, the little boy, wide awake yet half asleep,
would secret down the splintered stairs past
the cobwebs and the clutter to the front room where
he could hear the whistle loudest. He would turn on
the TV and scrutinize its test pattern and consider
what came next. Bouncing furtively on the sectional, he
could feel the wilted tips of the philodendron and imagine
the tentacles of a beast preparing to eat him up.
By three, the wind's whistle would become a melody
and the field mice and the mutt would have settled in
for one last January. The ice pellets would have turned
to snow flakes too muted to stir the snoring man
or the sotted woman. And the little boy would
doze off on the front room rug; his dreams of no school
unfazed by the fading warmth of the space heater
and the expectant glow of WNBT.
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A satellite finds a missile launcher
half-buried in a grove of citrus trees.
Quickly come the bombers flying low
across a plain of huts, goats, sparse palms.
The air-to-ground streaks down,
the target is destroyed, yet shrapnel
goes astray, mangles a child
running terrified across a field.
A mother lifts her daughter, carries
the corpse to a village marketplace.
Beside a well of spoiled water, newsmen
capture them in seines of light and sound.
Editors now build a story
out of the missile launcher’s twisted remains,
the wailing of a group of mothers,
the line of corpses under bloodstained blankets,
fragments of a rusty, decommissioned warhead,
the row of huts sprawled in their own debris.
There must be excitement, drama –
6 or 7 on a scale of 1 to 10.
More and the audience, overwhelmed, will skip
to another channel, less and viewers find it
boring – and grab for their remotes.
A hundred million sit watching
but I’ll just speak for you and me.
We nibble on potato chips and dip,
sip our sodas, while networks feed us
processed news along with processed cheese.
Sometimes, I want to rip the screen away,
reach into the television’s chest,
find that mass of packaged story,
cut it out like cancer. I long to hear
the testament of natural organs,
the voice of clean, pink lungs,
the beating heart of unadulterated fact.
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Middle-aged,
restless, inchoate poet, Terry Boykie, possesses more than 20 years of
experience in fundraising, primarily on behalf of scientific,
environmental, and educational institutions. He began writing verse when
he turned 50 as a way to assuage the chronic pain of sensory neuropathy
and the realization that he would never win a batting title.
Terry
received a BA in biology from Montclair State College and an MA. in
earth science from Wesleyan University. Terry is active with the
American Society of Association Executives and the Association of
Fundraising Professionals. Terry lives in Washington, DC with his wife,
Barbara. Significantly,
Terry is the inventor of Slashball,
The Game for the Next 100 Years.
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Fred
Longworth lives in San Diego and co-hosts the open-mic reading at Twiggs Coffee & Tea. His work has recently found homes in Pearl, Spillway
and California Quarterly; and on-line at Poetic Voices and miller’s pond. His poem "Stillness" won first place
in a January, 2003, contest sponsored by the California State Poetry
Society.
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