Gosh. If the poet’s wounds are
slow to heal, he asks that we “do not hold it, please, / for a putting of man
down.” Sometimes man deserves it, but all right. I remember once, as a small
child, getting bullied on the playground, crying, and an older girl tried to
comfort me. I pushed her away, because she was the one in reach. (I try not to
do things like that any longer.) She was a bit peeved. “I was just trying to
help.” I like to think that I let her know I was sorry. (It’s possible I did,
but probably not. Another item in our long, sad litany of regrets.) We coons, you know, being set against the
Ol’ Marster and all, will strike out—including the poet who oddly uses his own
name this time, which somehow raises the pathos level a bit further than usual
as he asks for a break.
Death: Are you radioactive pal?
Henry: Pal, radioactive.D: Does this resonate in a sad, geopolitical way with the terrifying state of the world you live in, pal?
H: Pal, it do.
D: Has you the night sweats & the day sweats, pal?
H: Pal, I do.
D: Does you drink too much so’s to forget your troubles, pal? And mos’ important, do it do the job? Do it do it?
H: Pal, yes & for brief comfortin’ spells.
D: Did your gal leave you?
H: What do you think, pal?
D: I think she in the next county, still runnin’.
H: I think yo’ insight sharp.
D: Is that thing on the front of your head what it seems to be, pal?
H: Yes, pal.
D: Is that thing on the front of your head what it seems to be, pal?
H: It’s my face, for which I take full responsibility. The nose, least of my problems, which leads like a cart horse drab the progress down and sends as well smells of flowers, the remorseless seas, and the perfume of an infant’s scalp to my brain, which ignores them. My eyes, the windows to my soul, are blinkered with the shades pulled. My mouth, fumbling a few spoken words, and which will run at opportune or inopportune moments, depending. Trust my fingers dexterous with pencil should you wish to hear me speak.
D: Eventual, expect an accuse of drama, if you don’t stop it. For this now, Henry gets a pass. It’s a tough life for him too.
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