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march 2003.
Three Poems
by Richard Stevenson
By the same authors
The primary influences on the enclosed pieces have been the American poet Ai ( particularly her New and Selected collection, Vice), Lynn Crosbie’s Missing Children, and similar works by Peter Stevens and Heather Spears, though, I hope to move in a slightly different direction by featuring monologues and narrative pieces from multiple points of view and featuring many of the principle characters in the case -- police, lawyers, victims, parents, poet, etc. The work is very dark, and, of course, won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. I’m not sure it’s even my cup of tea, and I’ve certainly avoided writing about the subject long enough. But the girl I taught deserves to be remembered as something other than a statistic. One could argue endlessly about the wisdom of giving voice to the monster who ended her life. However, if the work is any good of its kind, it probably deserves airing, if only to elicit the rage and anger over how these cases play out in the media, and tend to replicate like bad genes. Why Aren’t You In School?
Why aren’t you in school?
you ask, leaning out of the cab
of a working man’s truck.
Because I quit four months ago,
she replies, suddenly in luck
you’re a contractor today.
You have work -- ten something
cleaning windows and carpets
at an apartment not far away.
That’s all it usually takes --
an embossed business card,
two beer, a few mickey fins.
You offer the first in celebration --
Here’s to getting a job!
She sips so as not to offend.
Then: Take these: they’ll
keep you from getting drunk
and mask the beer smell.
She takes three, pockets
the other when you aren’t looking.
You drink six beer to her three,
deftly steer conversation
around potholes, municipal lines.
Her fingers start to go numb.
Lucky for her, you crash
before she’s a rag doll,
the guy first on the scene
calls a wrecker
who calls the cops
who circles the block.
He’s suspicious, dots the i’s,
has a bigger fish in his net
than one caught by crossed T’s --
only it doesn’t go that way.
The girl is lucky this time:
she gets another cruiser --
something about the way
you held her wrist as you ran
or how you kept tugging on her arm.
She and two other girls --
a boy too -- will get away,
though they’ve seen the shark in your eyes.
You run, after the cop
takes your license
number and particulars --
unusual. It’s not every day
a guy bolts while the cops
get a make on his ID.
You weren’t going anywhere --
across a farmer’s field,
but not past the APB --
not even to the next meal, really,
though you do get to Harrison
to a fresh Sasquatch T-shirt.
No way to connect
blood-red dots
on a yellow field.
Everything comes up daisies this time.
Even if you lose your license,
get nailed for supplying a minor,
whatever it is you are,
whatever it is you’ve become
manages to squeak past your smirk.
--
Asleep In a Cell
Asleep in a cell --
not a bottle
tossed in a ditch.
You could be
anyone’s daughter --
my own at sixteen --
a fly forever
wrapped in
spider’s silk,
gauzy with
chloral hydrate
and a few beer,
a parcel
wrapped and waiting
for the spider to dine on.
Mine, he thinks --
to the extent he
allows himself to think.
Mine, then dead --
so you can’t
point a finger.
Simple as that --
for a brief
shudder in the loins.
In an hour or three,
you’ll sleep it off,
shudder to tell.
--
Sequential Sentencing
What is the value of a single human life
in a judge’s sentence of a serial killer?
How many days do you subtract from
the life expectancy of the murderer
to pay for the extinction of his victims?
How many days per body do you estimate
before the killer should be eligible
for a parole hearing? Should he be eligible?
What is a parole hearing in aid of
that would justify consideration
of such an unholy candidate?
What’s the release date? How long does a killer keep
in a can? How do you refrigerate evil
when you can’t define or contain the germ?
What’s a bad person got that isn’t a disease?
Should it be quarantined? Can it be caught?
If it’s not a disease and the killer
is most at ease and organized and deliberate
in his acts, is not sick or deranged -
at least not in any accepted way
that could be called mental illness
and eliminate rational behaviour, will, and choice;
he is not neurotic or psychotic;
he is psychopathic ...
(Subtract empathy, add caution.);
he doesn’t want to be caught
so he’s got a kit and a script
(Add deliberation, malice aforethought.);
he is dangerous and devious,
deliberately deceitful and adept;
he has programmed himself
to various pseudo- and paraphylia;
cares not a jot for the lot of others,
only in how a body can be used and abused:
how long and at what temperature
and under what conditions do you
quarantine such a creature?
Bend or break, the body is expendable,
something to use up in a burning bush of malevolent
neural delight, whenever, however he likes.
What does sequential sentencing mean then?
What is your duty? How serve and protect ... ?
The guy would make lousy fertilizer!
What would grow then?
27th July 2005
A Literary Magazine (based in India). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
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