The other day in a bar
a young man threw down,
called me out, and Said,

"How do you
become a poet,
oldtimer?"

I sat my bourbon down,
looked him dead in the eye,
thought I might fling
an impossible koan
to take him out,
but instead I answered.

"Listen close and I'll tell you true.
It's all in the Muse, kid.
Not a muse; The Muse.
The only Muse for you.
And you'd better start looking now
because it can take your whole life."

I finished my drink.

"Next time," I said," ask me why
the bridge flows, but the water
is motionless."

He sat stunned,
philosophically
out-gunned.

I sat my empty glass down
and slowly walked away.

Another notch on the handle
of my Karma pistol.

No matter how good you are,
they just keep coming.

  ~mce

I guess it's time to reveal the truth,
It's not like I've been lying to you

but I haven't really formally introduced
myself to you, and I've been thinking

It's time to let you in so I can offer
you a cigarette and you can

drink my finest wine while I tell you
that Grizzo is something more

than a childhood nickname that stuck
to the bottom of my shoes like

parking lot gum, or your grandmother's
lipstick on your cheeks, you see

I was quiet, shy, and entering puberty
when people started calling me Grizzo

Some people in high school and college
didn't even know Bryan

Which is funny because I didn't know
myself either but I knew Grizzo

mainly because people expect certain
things and I keep my word

so when I told them I would jump
off the roof, they just stood around

drunk, but not as drunk as me,
No one expects to see Crazy in action

But at least once they do they never
forget the time you jumped off the roof

and hit the ground at 3 in the morning
so hard that your glasses flew off

and the only thing you broke
was your pride, or how you would

always answer everything with "**** it"
because if life ***** you might as well

get your nut too

Camel Crush Bold cigarettes in an ashtray
and Jameson on ice with a splash of water

These things can help the words on
late nights or lazy afternoons

Sometimes the best lunch is
a tapped Porter or Stout on special

and putting down a few lines
on crumbled bar room napkins

This is his old habit, this is how
he needs to come out from time to
time

Grizzo isn't all ***** and giggles
though because as much as I want

to be tough, be a hard ***, always be right
I'm weak, I'm fragile, and so ******* wrong

about all the things you need to be right
about in life, but I'm turning 29 soon

and I think I'm finally starting to get

why the light needs darkness to shine
why love needs hate to thrive,
why Bryan needs Grizzo to write.

up country Laos, 1972*

I won't do it, I said. I won't.

It's a direct order, he said.

We stood a few yards apart,
in front of the blasted wire
where the screaming
enemy wounded
were caught like stuck flies.

It had been a long night
of attack and repulse;
the howling wounded
were all that remained.

He was maybe thirty,
an Ivy League ***** wannabe;
I was just a battle weary broken
20-year-old with no silver spoon.

You will get your *** out there
and tap those moaning *****
and you will do it now, another order.

I said, I'm a medic, not a murderer.
They are prisoners. There are lines,
even here. I will not cross this one.

**** lines. What you are, he said, is a *****.

In his hand, a lethal black 9mm Beretta;
in mine a 1911 model Colt 45 automatic.

Both loaded. Both ready to speak. Both angry.
Both anxious. Both with something to say.

You aren't my CO. You're not even an officer.
I refuse, I said. ******* and the Company.

My hand tensed on the 45. The Beretta quivered.

We looked at each other, working out the odds,

Death, for one of us, seemed only a few seconds away.

But he hesitated, lowered his weapon.

It's ******* like you who lost this war, he said.

And it's mad men like you who started it, I replied.

He turned and walked out to tap the wounded,
one by one, ****** after ******.

Delighting in revenge.

I walked back to the chopper, gun in hand,
and nodded to the pilot. We flew away,
at first to more war, but then back to the world,

the world that could never, ever be the same.

~mce