Gladîator

Gladiator One For The Mick


In Memory of Alfred Schweitzman





The banging of the black iron fence

Recalls my childhood. On my toes looking into

The bathroom mirror. The part

Must be straight.

Cowboy boots, new Levi Jeans,

Cowboy hat: I was ready for action.

Downstairs no one listens.

Outside the air cold pure,

Like it was for the dinosaurs.

My club, a stick, I use to rattle

The iron fence. My hair blows in the wind.

Little boy with your shiny brown

Hair I hear you crying.

I’ll be good; I’ll be good God.

The rain came and it bubbled in

The gutter. The bubbling

No more rain, too bad.



My mother not once

Comes to say goodnight;

That’s dad’s job.

The night the aerie hum begins.

Who are those heads floating out

Of the locked closet?

Hearing voices I crawl.

Outside my sisters room. I

Watch through a mirror.

My mother studies my sister

At three A.M. telling her men

Only want sex.

Talking props.

Now my mother waits for me at the

Door. I shrink.



The gatling stick on the iron fence

Accompanies me. Leaves are falling,

I kick them.

Meeting your friends helps.

Alfie yelling out his window

He’ll be down. Shelly’s there and Joel

And Nat and Allen : our rogue family.

Each has his own guiding star.


The Mick is pulling me to

The schoolyard.

The Mick’s speed, strength:

A river of power. He knows

The taping ritual. He saviors

 

The batting box where the pain leaves.

The Mick’s beatific smile

Never reveals his injuries;

Thousands roar. Pain no more.

Spartacus with a bat.



The boy saw it like the moon.

He smacked it with his bat.

A whirlwind of power could change everything.

Gladiators never die.

My troop is waiting for me,

And the staccato of the iron fence.