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time after time

and afterwards were

followed

taunted all the way home where often

more beatings awaited us.

in the schoolyard the bullies ruled well,

and in the restrooms and

at the water fountains they

owned and disowned us at will

but in our own way we held strong

never begged for mercy

we took it straight on

silently

we were toughened by that horror

a horror that would later serve us in good stead

and then strangely

as we grew stronger and bolder

the bullies gradually began to back off.

grammar school

jr. high

high school

we grew up like odd neglected plants

gathering nourishment where we could

blossoming in time

and later when the bullies tried to befriend us

we turned them away.

then college

where under a new regime

the bullies melted almost entirely away

we became more and they became much less.

but there were new bullies now

the professors

who had to be taught the hard lessons we’d learned

we glowed madly

it was grand and easy

the coeds dismayed at our gamble

and our nerve

but we looked right through them

to the larger fight waiting out there.

then when we arrived out there

it was back up against the fence

new bullies once again

deeply entrenched by society

bosses and the like

who kept us in our place for de cades to come

so we had to begin all over again

in the street

and in small rooms of madness

rooms that were always dim at noon

it lasted and lasted for years like that

but our former training enabled us to endure

and after what seemed like

an eternity

we finally found the tunnel at the end of the light.

it was a small enough victory

no songs of braggadocio because

we knew we had won very little from very little,

and that we had fought so hard to be free

just for the simple sweetness of it.

but even now we still can see the grade school janitor

with his broom

and sleeping face;

we can still see the little girls with their curls

their hair so carefully brushed and shining

in their freshly starched dresses;

see the faces of the teachers

fat folded forlorn;

hear the bell at recess;

see the grass and the baseball diamond;

see the volleyball court and its white net;

feel the sun always up and shining there

spilling down on us like the juice of a giant tangerine.

and we did not soon forget

Herbie Ashcroft

our principal tormentor

his fists as hard as rocks

as we crouched trapped against the steel fence

as we heard the sounds of automobiles passing but not stopping

and as the world went about doing what it does

we asked for no mercy

and we returned the next day and the next and the next

to our classes

the little girls looking so calm and secure

as they sat upright in their seats

in that room of blackboards and chalk

while we hung on grimly to our stubborn disdain

for all the horror and all the strife

and waited for something better

to come along and comfort us

in that never-to-be-forgotten

grammar school world.

in the lobby

I saw him sitting in a lobby chair

in the Patrick Hotel

dreaming of flying fish

and he said “hello friend

you’re looking good.

me, I’m not so well,

they’ve plucked out my hair

taken my bowels

and the color in my eyes

has gone back into the sea.”

I sat down and listened

to him breathe

his last.

a bit later the clerk came over

with his green eyeshade on

and then the clerk saw what I knew

but neither of us knew

what the old man knew.

the clerk stood there

almost surprised,

taken,

wondering where the old man had gone.

he began to shake like an ape

who’d had a banana taken from his hand.

and then there was a crowd

and the crowd looked at the old man

as if he were a freak

as if there was something wrong with him.

I got up and walked out of the lobby

I went outside on the sidewalk

and I walked along with the rest of them

bellies, feet, hair, eyes

everything moving and going

getting ready to go back to the beginning

or light a cigar.

and then somebody stepped on

the back of my heel

and I was