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Charles Potts |
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1958 The Nasdaq fell to 1958 From 1989 yesterday. I use these reciprocating dates As a little know form of astrology. If the numbers are bouncing around in my time line I often think about what I was doing then. 1958. My dad bought me a car. It was a whole year before I got laid in it, A sophomore in high school in wild and wooly Idaho. Wooly because I was a sheep herder; Wild where I became a teenage alcoholic. I grew up Russian on Vodka and ice skates. I had no idea I'd become a yogi. Will I live to finish Coca Colananda: the Autobody of a Poet? Empires Loyalty and Patriotism (A short story made inestimably shorter by Putting it in poetry) Taught by my brother's Terrible wounds of loneliness and alcoholism From teenage shipwreck on The Lexington to Shrapnel on The Shangri La To dodge the Vietnam War draft (No ordinary man or woman should fire a shot In colonial war until at least several senators Have been killed) My arrested case of loyalty remains Simply with my family. We are not a country and Sometimes they wish I'd just shut up. I remember Russian Distilled through the vodka of my teenage teeth Sobbing Dostoyevsky lacing sub zero ice skates. It would be decades before I'd learn Zhukov clobbered Hitler at Stalingrad Winning the decisive battle of World War Two in Europe. Google me mama to get the spelling of his name straight I punched up a brief biography in Italian Molto robusto, coraggio, Per Stalin, Zhukov era la sua ultima speranza The last best hope of the Patri-side. Zhukov defended his country-side. My country was gobbled by paranoid fascism And shit out an empire. Everyman 10-9-04 Innocently leaning on the counter in front of The teller's cage at Banner Bank Carol came up to me and said "You could be everyman, With your cap and your suspenders. You could be fishing or working." I am working you twit. |