| SPINBUSTERS |
| Cultural Issues Minus the Spin |
| L. Bowie Patches, Foozler Poet-in-Residence, presents: |
| Tails of the Patriarchy |
| Prophets are pterodactyls. Ancestor, vision and magic are moot. Sibyl giggles. Tiresias throws up his hands. The times are in your face, two-way mirrors: all we're cracked up to be is the rage today. At the legal infirm where I devise correspondence, the male toilet reads "BOYS," the women's room "ANGELS." The lady partners brunch, practice their law, wax rhetorical on schoolboys berserking: Gun control Anger management Try them as adults What�s their problem? I type "Dear mr. smith Your wife has filed The judge orders you to Your children will be removed Perhaps with good behavior your sentence might Forms enclosed for your kind submission Very Truly" and the billionth brother is in the bank. Don't I get a toaster or something? Remember ten-thousand years ago, three slim decades, when men stormed the streets, swore off war and mater- ialism, our bodies no longer subjects of command? Blind chicks, we pecked at orders, thought generals and corporate execs had hidden heaven's keys. We'll clot the gears of your Machine with our blood we vowed. Well, the Machine yawns, hungrier still. Got boys? Meat so tender, delicious hero sandwiches mom made herself. |
| "The Last Nigger" |
| Ruthie and I shared assignments in Sister Frances de Sales' third grade. Ruthie held my hands during PB&J on Wonder lunches, said she loved me loads of forever. She predicted that we'd marry in the Canary Islands. Goddess knows the punishment today had I kissed her. Life suspension. I type another pleading, watch first communion boys parading past, rank upon rank of aroused eunuchs, minds and bodies defenseless. The last child ziegheils, sneaks a Colt under my belt, jackboots through the playground metal detector. Tag: We're It. I shove the steel down my pants and for once in .45 years I am unmuzzled. Education never changes. At the local indoctrination camp I taught "special ed" kids, toxic dump for larval males. The mandatory assembly performed crowdpleasing contortions: counselors educators men- tors and other professional zombies flipping over ritalin, discrete learning disabilities, shortchanging our girls, outcome-based curricula. Dearest Alma Mater. On the blacktop the improved ruthies grip my fingers and skip: Hey! mr. remark Why are boys assholes Why do girls rule and Are you married? Same hands Ruthie stroked tied behind our backs now, strung by two-way tongues, low blow after low blow after awhile the broomstick arms tire, feet pick up the beat: a Left and a Right and a Right and a Left, bend over boy, the parties are just warming up. |
| Part one |
| Part two |
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